


The Fine Art of Just Letting Things Happen

by taegyungie



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: A Very Kind Taeyong, A Very Sad Doyoung, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, boys being dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-20 05:02:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20669759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taegyungie/pseuds/taegyungie
Summary: Taeyong rolls his eyes. “Oh my god, are you a toddler? I baked you cookies ‘cause you’ve been having a rough go,” he brings the cookies back up to his face, eyes getting wider in this awful puppy-dog way that makes Doyoung want to equal parts kick him in the stomach and kiss his forehead, “and cookies fix everything.”orDoyoung's having a difficult go at life. Taeyong's too nice for his own good.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> my first dive into NCT fic!!!!! Honestly, I've been an nctzen since the 7th sense, but only recently have I just allowed myself to be swallowed whole by all 21 of these stupid boys. Never in my life did I think I would allow so many men into my life. It is what it is.
> 
> A big thanks to Jin eggsootart as always, for always being eternally supportive and beta-ing as much as she can with her busy schedule. She works too hard and I will never ever deserve her friendship.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this!!! It's basically just dotae being hardheaded dumbasses for nearly 30k. Exactly the content we like to see amirite.

The digital clock, on the corner of his desk, flashes in aggressive, furious red, a time of 4:07a.m. Doyoung sighs, stares at the empty document on his laptop screen, and resigns to his fate of slowly succumbing to the stress and fatigue. The blinking cursor mocks him, much like the 4:08a.m. on his clock, and he wonders if the ache in his shoulders is from having sat slouched over at his desk, this long, or the weight of everything else around him.

He would be nearly finished with this paper, too, if he hadn’t received that phone call from his mother a whole six hours ago. If he hadn’t picked up the phone to the sound of his mother’s voice, hollow with the effort of sounding put-together, as she shakily said those four words that shook Doyoung to his very core and flipped his world upside down…

_ “Your father’s fallen ill.” _

And now, six hours later, Doyoung stares at his empty document and thinks about nothing at all. His brain, usually perpetually busy with an onslaught of thoughts, tasks, responsibilities, is eerily silent. Blank. All he registers is exhaustion.

He runs a hand over his face, pushes his chair back with a skid across the floor. He wanders over to his record player, across the living room, and plugs it in. It’s just a cheap one, a pretty colour, the kind that’s mostly there for aesthetic value than actual sound quality, but it was a gift from his mother when he moved into this apartment, something to fill all this space, and he treasures it. He picks a random record from his collection and puts it on. Just… something to fill the silence.

With a click, he turns the kettle on, opening a cupboard to dig out his tub of instant coffee. It’s not ideal, but he doesn’t think his local Starbucks is open this late, and he needs something to perhaps kick his brain into gear. Doyoung’s paper is due tomorrow. Or, today, really.

Plopping back down in his chair with his steaming mug of coffee, he mutters encouragement to himself, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand. It’s not even a  _ difficult  _ project, not one that should take much more than an hour or two of work. His knee bounces, beneath the table, as he stirs the coffee with his spoon. He lets the quiet  _ clink clink clink  _ lure him into a steady rhythm, breathing steadier, gathering his thoughts into something linear and comprehensible, instead of jumbled nothingness.

His record continues to spin in the background, and Doyoung just now notices that he had put on the N’Sync album that Johnny bought him for his birthday last year, because he thinks he’s really funny. He sighs again, then he starts typing.

\-----

Doyoung startles, when the sound of his alarm goes off. He scrambles to reach for his phone, his back and neck aching from how he had fallen asleep, with his cheek pressed to his keyboard. He shuts off the alarm, groans and stretches in his chair, and then immediately panics.

The digital clock on the corner of his desk flashes an obnoxious, proud, 7:01a.m., and Doyoung wants to die. He swivels his fingertip around on the trackpad of his laptop, waking it from Sleep Mode. He opens up the document from last night.

Oh. He finished it. Right.

Panic strikes again, and he quickly hits the Print button before nearly tipping his chair over in an attempt to get up. He rushes into the bathroom to shower, and it isn’t until he’s halfway through lathering up the shampoo in his hair that he realizes he forgot to grab his towel from his bedroom.

Doyoung wills himself not to cry.

It’s when the clock on the corner of his desk reads 7:24a.m. that Doyoung gathers up the pages from his printer, staples them together, and hastily shoves them into his backpack. And it’s when he’s stepping out onto the sidewalk outside his building that Johnny is there waiting for him, a Starbucks cup in each hand.

Doyoung takes one without even a word to his friend. Johnny just frowns as they fall into step towards campus together.

“So, you look like shit.”

Doyoung snorts. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Did you sleep last night?”

“Not much,” Doyoung grumbles, taking a large sip of his coffee for emphasis. It burns his tongue but he doesn’t even flinch.

“How come?” The concern on Johnny’s voice is sweet, really, but Doyoung can’t be bothered to thank him for caring, right now.

“Mom called last night,” he kicks at the sidewalk as he drags his feet along, barely able to keep up with his friend. He debates telling Johnny what’s going on, but figures he shouldn’t be thrusting his burdens onto his friend. At least not before 8:00. “You know her, she’ll never get used to the time difference.”

If Johnny suspects there’s anything more to it, he doesn’t let it show. He just shrugs, sipping at his coffee. Then, he moves on with a, “Did you finish that assignment?”

Doyoung nods.

Johnny kisses his teeth. “Of course you did.”

Doyoung doesn’t have any words to retort. He just silently moves on. 

The day blurs on, in Doyoung’s exhausted mind. He hands in his assignment, he goes to his lectures, he goes to the class he TA’s, he eats his lunch. He meets his study group in the library, and together they review last week’s lessons. He meets up with the student he tutors in calculus. He drinks a lot,  _ a lot,  _ of coffee.

It’s sitting at that table in the library with Mark that his eyelids begin to drift shut. 

“Uhh, Doyoung?” Mark is gently saying. He pushes at Doyoung’s shoulder with the butt end of his pencil. “What do I do with this three?”

Doyoung blinks his eyes open, sits up in his seat. “Huh? Oh-” he clears his throat. “I- I don’t... Do you have your calculus book?”

Mark’s brows knit together, yet he nods and reaches for his textbook. “We don’t have to continue,” he says, as Doyoung flips through to find what he’s looking for. “You seem tired.”

“What? No,” Doyoung says, stifling a yawn behind his fist. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

He hopes.

And it’s when he’s finished tutoring Mark and making plans with one of the students from the advanced functions class he TA’s for to meet up to discuss her project that he’s finally at home and tossing his bag onto his couch and landing face first into his mattress. He sighs a loud, well-deserved sigh, and decides that he’s just going to fall asleep right here, in his clothes. He doesn’t need dinner, or a shower, or pajamas. He’s just going to finally sleep.

But, without warning, his heart begins to pound and his head begins to race. He thinks about his parents, and he wishes, somewhat, that he was with them in Seoul, there to hold his mother’s hand while his dad goes through all this testing. All this treatment. The fact that he’s become so frail, according to his mom, yet the doctors  _ still  _ don’t know what exactly is wrong with him… it makes Doyoung genuinely consider buying a plane ticket to Korea, instead of worrying from afar.

He can’t, though. He has assignments to finish and papers to grade and study sheets to write up for the students he tutors. He has so much to do and so much on his plate. In fact, it was stupid of him to think that he could just collapse into bed and sleep his evening away. Not when he has so much to do.

Immediately, he shoots out of bed and wanders out into his living room, rubbing his eyes. He flits through his records, looking for something noisy to keep him awake. Beastie Boys, that’ll do. He turns on his TV, at full volume. It’s some game show he doesn’t care about. At least it’s noise.

Then, he plops down at his desk, ignoring his rumbling stomach. The clock on his desk reads 9:43p.m. Unzipping his backpack, he gets to work.

\-----

His mother calls again on a Friday night. It’s already unreasonably late. Doyoung hasn’t been able to sleep much, lately, between his schoolwork and that of his students. With a voice damp with the inability to keep it together, she tells him the news.

It’s pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer often isn’t detected until it’s developed beyond repair.

He’ll go through treatment, just to lengthen his life a little more. But there’s no getting rid of it, no real chance of fighting it. He has a year, at best. And that’s being hopeful.

Doyoung and his mother had ended their call an hour ago, and he has been curled up on the couch, since. Crying and crying and wishing he were there, wishing he could be there for his mom. He knows she’s missed him since they moved back to Seoul, a few years ago, and Doyoung stayed behind to study. Stayed to get his fucking mechanical engineering degree. Like he couldn’t get that in Seoul.

Now, so late it’s technically early, he’s filled with a restless energy he can’t get rid of, his body vibrating and his knees bouncing. Doyoung gets up, vibrating down to his fingertips and his toes, and paces around his apartment with heavy, worried steps. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, what he’s feeling, or how to feel. He’s just a flurry of overflowing emotions and thoughts, never-ending and all consuming and overwhelming him to unreadable amounts.

He crumples to the ground and cries again.

The sun is coming up when he straightens himself out, his heartbeat settled to a comfortable pace and his breathing no longer laboured. He squeezes his eyes shut, and finds nothing else that needs to be let out. He sits at his desk, pulls out the papers he needs to grade, and reaches for his red gel pen.

The stack of papers is thick. Doyoung has never TA’d for a class this size, and it’s taking a toll on his free time. Time he should be using to study, himself. Instead he scratches at errors and miscalculations. Even spelling mistakes, because honestly who takes advanced functions but doesn’t know how to spell  _ propulsion?  _ He begins scratching at the surface of his desk with his pen as he reads on, unable to stamp down his frustrated energy. 

He doesn’t know what time it is when his phone starts vibrating on the corner of the desk. Doyoung picks it up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, where are you?” It’s Johnny.

“I’m…” he rubs a hand over his face. He’s drained and hollow and tired. “I’m just working. Why?”

“Because you were supposed to meet us for lunch twenty minutes ago.”

_ Right,  _ Doyoung thinks,  _ I had plans with my friends today.  _ “Oh, sorry. I uh- I lost track of time.”

Johnny is quiet for a long moment. “Doyoung, are you alright?”

Doyoung digs the tip of his pen into the wooden surface of his desk. He figures it’s better that someone else knows, someone who can understand. “My dad’s dying.”

“Shit,” Johnny says. Doyoung can hear the shuffling of a jacket being put on, the sound of Johnny muttering his goodbyes to everyone. “Stay where you are, I’m coming over.”

Once Johnny hangs up, Doyoung doesn’t think he could even move if he wanted to. He just stares at the letters on the page without reading them. 

It’s after a long time of staring at the word  _ furthermore  _ that the sound of a key wiggling in the door snaps Doyoung out of his daze. The door pushes open, and Doyoung blinks up at his friend as he closes the door behind him and rushes to Doyoung’s side. 

Johnny falls to his knees next to Doyoung’s chair and wraps big, warm arms around him. 

“I’m sorry, bro,” he says quietly. 

“It’s… okay,” Doyoung whispers. He’s somewhat accepted it now, now that he’s kept himself up all night and found something to take his mind off the tragedy of it all. “It sucks but… what can I do, you know?”

Johnny pushes back, arms still lazily draped over Doyoung as he frowns at him. “What happened?”

“Here, get up,” Doyoung says, climbing out of his chair and pulling Johnny up with him. Together, they walk over to the couch and plop themselves down. Doyoung takes a breath. “Mom called last night. He’s been in the hospital for almost two weeks now, doing tests and… they just found out it’s pancreatic cancer.”

Johnny’s brows furrow. “Ouch.”

Doyoung’s smile is equal parts small and sad. “Yeah.”

“So,” Johnny says, sinking further into the couch cushions, “what are you gonna do?”

Doyoung shakes his head. “Nothing, for now. I can’t go anywhere.”

Johnny nods solemnly. “Well. I mean. Now, I’m only a concerned loved one, but I think this is a good time for you to relax a bit and take it easy for a little while.” Doyoung blinks at him. “Just take care of yourself for a bit.”

Doyoung, by instinct, shakes his head slightly. “Wh- no, I- not right now!” he says, voice getting increasingly more worked up. “I have so much work to do, I-”

“Doie, it’s barely October.”

“I hate that nickname. And yes, it’s October.” Doyoung gets up, filling up with restless energy again, despite the way his bones feel heavy with exhaustion. He paces around the area rug in his living room for a bit. “Mid-terms will be coming up soon! Which means I have  _ my  _ studying to deal with, and my  _ students’  _ studying to deal with.”

“Doyoung, I really think-”

“Johnny, I…” Doyoung sighs and stops in his tracks. His arms hang uselessly at his sides, and his chin digs into his chest as he stares down at his feet. “All I have is work.”

There’s a pregnant pause. Doyoung doesn’t look up to see whatever expression Johnny may be failing to hide. “That’s just not true.”

Doyoung breathes heavy through his nose. “Just let me have this, okay?” His voice is so quiet, he almost thinks Johnny won’t hear him. “My work is- it’s something I’m good at. Something I  _ can  _ do, for now.”  _ To not feel completely useless. _

Another long pause. “Okay,” Johnny eventually says. “Only because I can’t fight with you.”

Doyoung smiles, albeit sadly.

Johnny climbs up from the couch and steps up to Doyoung, placing his hands on each of his shoulders. Doyoung looks up, then, to see a small, sympathetic smile on his friend’s face. Then, Johnny says, “At least go take a shower and have a nap?”

“Yeah,” Doyoung nods, thinking about the piles of papers waiting to be graded on his desk. “Okay.”

Deciding the conversation is over, Johnny wanders over to the kitchen, leaving Doyoung to his own devices. He’s tired, yes, but mostly just restless and itchy beneath his skin. His stomach is empty, his thoughts sound distant, all reverberation. Slow, his steps are, as he wanders into the bathroom and closes the door behind him. 

He’s pretty certain the water is way too hot, but he makes no effort to change it. The burn against his skin is muted, behind all his exhaustion, and a little welcome, all things considered. He doesn’t mind the dull pain of it. It wakes him out of his stupor, a little bit. 

A bathroom filled thick with steam and skin turned red hot later, Doyoung emerges from the bathroom, changed into the pajamas Johnny must have put on the bathroom counter while Doyoung was in the shower, and scrubbing at his hair with his towel. He wanders into his bedroom, only to find a plate of toast on his bedside table, a little note next to it. He hangs his towel on the hook behind his door, wanders over to his bed, and picks up the note. 

_ Toast is all I know how to make. Eat up and get some rest. Sorry I had to run! _

_ -J _

Doyoung can’t help but smile. 

He sits on the edge of his bed, munching on his toast and staring at the wall. His mind is so beautifully, spectacularly blank. He’s so glad to be thinking of absolutely nothing, for once in his life. He thinks he uses his brain far too much, sometimes. 

With the plate empty save for crumbs, Doyoung curls up in his side, under his covers, and closes his eyes. Basking in the silence in his head. 

\-----

The following week is a blur of red ink, sleepless nights, and phone calls with his parents. He falls asleep at the most inopportune times - hunched over his books in the library, sitting in lectures, literally standing in line at the Starbucks down the street. A stranger had to grab his arm and steady him when he started to sway on the spot. 

And now, on a Friday evening, it’s pouring rain. It’s cold, with the October air, and Doyoung is already weakened to the bone with his lack of sleep and bounteous workload. Not to mention other…  _ stressors  _ in his life. He has his hands shoved into his jacket pockets and his shoulders hiked up to his ears as he speedwalks along the sidewalk to his building. 

It’s when he steps through the door and into the dry lobby that he realizes his teeth are clattering. He should have prepared for the rain, like the person waiting at the elevator as Doyoung steps up, with their umbrella closed and held at their side like a cane. 

The door dings open and both Doyoung and the stranger step inside. He punches the button for his floor, the seventh.

“Floor?” he asks the stranger. 

The person turns to look at him, wide, beautiful eyes blinking up at him. Doyoung’s stomach does something weird, and he doesn’t know if it’s from his perpetual anxious energy or the aggressively perfect bone structure of the blue haired man in front of him. 

The guy turns away so quickly, the way you pull back a hand that’s been burned. “Six,” he says.

Doyoung nods, pressing the button. He’s still shivering, which doesn’t help with the way his nerve endings have just been positively aflame this last week. He’s just a useless, vibrating form of a human, and there’s so much bubbling up inside him he feels as though he might go crazy in this quiet, tiny elevator. 

(Next to a very pretty man, he might add).

“Ah, I was so not prepared for this weather,” Doyoung blurts out, too fast, too eager. It all just pours out of him. “Knowing my luck I’ll get sick, as if I need that, right now.”

Sixth doesn’t even glance over at him. His shoulders, however, get progressively higher and higher with tension. 

Doyoung, despite noticing a signal if he ever did see one, can’t stop himself from talking. He’s pretty sure he reached insanity when he started seeing shadow people a couple nights ago. “Not that anybody needs to get sick ever. Unless you’re trying to get out of something you don’t wanna do. But, anyway, I-”

He stops himself, mid-sentence. The guy hasn’t acknowledged him, except for tensing up and actively keeping himself from looking up at him. Doyoung just sighs, understanding that this guy doesn’t want to talk. What his sleep deprived brain wonders, however, is what he did to  _ offend  _ this poor guy.

The elevator comes to a stop, and Doyoung watches the guy step off and into the hallway. Doyoung watches him, all small and slender and walking like he’s got balloons on his feet and cowers at loud noises. Doyoung watches him, as he steps up to the door right outside the elevator and slots his key into the door, and realization hits him like a blunt force. 

This guy lives in the apartment below him. Below  _ him,  _ with his late nights and his record player and his relentless pacing. Doyoung hasn’t spent a night in a couple weeks that  _ didn’t  _ involve frustratedly pacing the rug in his living room, blasting music or his TV to keep himself somewhat grounded, to fill his space with white noise. 

No wonder this guy would barely spare him a glance. He must  _ loathe  _ him.

The elevator door opens again and Doyoung steps out, slotting his key into his door. He sighs, still shivering and damp, and immediately tosses his backpack aside to head to the bathroom for a hot shower. 

He stands under the boiling water and thinks about pretty eyes that turned away so quickly as if it  _ pained  _ them to look at him. He gets out of the shower and thinks about tense shoulders and clenched fists. He sits down on his couch with his textbook in his lap, ready to go over some of his readings, and thinks about a remarkably quiet, extremely timid number said through practically clenched teeth. 

He sighs. Doyoung has been staring at the same word for a good few minutes now. He’s obviously not going to get any reading done like this. 

With a heavy sigh, he slips on his slippers that he keeps by the door. He looks down at his outfit, worn sweatpants and a threadbare t-shirt. He decides he hasn’t the energy to change into anything else. 

He takes the stairs, because who needs to take the elevator for one floor? His feet are slow, the  _ slap, slap, slap,  _ of his slippers hitting the ground with each stair. Then, he’s on the sixth floor, and stepping up to the door just in front of the elevator. 

_ Knock, knock, knock. _

He hears footsteps from the other side of the door. He knows his neighbour is on the other side, looking through the peephole. Doyoung double checks to make sure he isn’t frowning. He thinks he’s good. 

Tentatively, the door opens, and a head pops out. 

“Hi?” 

Doyoung puts on a placating smile. “Hey, uh-”

He doesn’t know what he wants to say.

The guy just blinks up at him, wide eyes even wider. He looks like a kicked puppy. No, kitten. Doyoung’s stomach does that thing again. 

He stares up at Gatorade blue hair to distract himself. 

“Yeah, I live in the apartment above you, actually, and I just wanted to come down and apologize, if I’m making too much noise, or keeping you up at night,” he says. “It’s, uh- I mean-”

The door opens further, and his neighbour steps out a bit, leaning up against his door frame. Doyoung can’t help but look down, at his oversized hoodie that swallows up his tiny frame, at his pajama pants with baby chicks printed on them. Doyoung’s mouth goes dry and loses whatever words were waiting on his tongue. This guy is so cute it’s heinously distracting. 

“You’re not-” blue hair clears his throat “-you’re not keeping me up at all. You’re fine, really.”

Doyoung just blinks back at him. He brings up a hand to scratch at the nape of his neck. “Ah, well, I just kinda got the feeling, earlier, that I had done something to offend you and figured-”

“Oh, god, no!” His eyes turn into saucers. He shakes a hand out in front of him, immediately shutting down what Doyoung is saying. “No, oh my god, if I seemed unfriendly it’s just… I’m just shy, I guess.”

Doyoung’s eyes narrow. Shy? Born with a face like that and he’s  _ shy?  _ Whatever, who’s he to judge?

“Okay,” Doyoung nods. “I’m sorry, still, I know I must be making a lot of noise at night.”

Blue shakes his head. His bangs fall into his eyes at the motion. “Nah, I mean. I hear you pacing around and all, but I’m such a night hawk, myself, I’ve never even thought twice about it.”

“Yeah, well,” Doyoung’s brain is yelling at him to shut up, but with his lack of sleep and diminishing mental state he has very little control over himself anymore. “I’m just going through a tough time right now, so I hope the late nights don’t last forever.”

“Oh.”

_ Shut up, Doyoung Kim!  _ “You know how it is, grad school is so much work, on top of my extracurriculars, and,”  _ Doyoung Kim, shut UUUPPP!!!  _ “Turns out my dad’s come down with a terminal illness, but my parents are back home in Korea, while I’m the asshole son that decided to stay in New York for school, and-”

He looks up from where his eyes had been trained on the carpet beneath him, and he meets the wide-eyed, totally shocked gaze of his neighbour. He looks  _ horrified.  _ Doyoung’s stomach drops out of his ass. 

“Oh my god,” Doyoung blanches. “I’m so sorry, I’ll shut up now, I-”

“No, it’s fine!”

“I’m just making a fool of myself, holy shit, I’m so sorry-”

“Don’t be,” his neighbour says, and it’s said so earnestly that Doyoung clamps his mouth shut so fast his teeth knock together. “Really. I’m… sorry you’re having a tough time.”

Doyoung purses his lips together. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“I’m Taeyong.”

Doyoung scratches at the nape of his neck again. His heart is beating too fast. He’s too exhausted to have to deal with making an absolute ass of himself in front of his cute neighbour. His pride is so wounded he thinks it may never heal. 

“I’m Doyoung.”

A second passes, where neither of them say anything. Taeyong just studiously watches Doyoung, his lips pushed out into a contemplative pout. Doyoung tries not to look at him too closely, considering his current lack of self control and recent habit of embarrassing the fuck out of himself. 

“Do you have any food allergies, Doyoung?”

Doyoung furrows his brows together. “Wha- no?”

Taeyong nods, this weird look in his eyes that Doyoung doesn’t like. 

“Why?”

Taeyong shakes his head. “No reason.”

“Tell me,” he demands. Doyoung can’t help it. He’s stopped trying to behave himself the way humans are supposed to. 

Taeyong just laughs. “Nothing important, Doyoung, really.” He reaches out for his door, swings it back and forth beside him. “Thanks for coming by.”

“You don’t understand,” Doyoung says, frowning deeper. “I hate not knowing things.”

“Well, I was just curious,” Taeyong says, stepping back into his apartment with a smug little smile on his face. He starts to close his door, ever so slowly. “Nothing else to know.”

“Taeyong-”

“I appreciate the apology, however unnecessary,” Taeyong says. His door is almost shut, now. “Have a good night, Doyoung. Get some sleep.”

“Wait!”

The door is shut in his face. 

_ Well,  _ Doyoung thinks to himself,  _ at least I know he isn’t mad at me.  _

He trudges back up to his apartment, back to his quiet, cold apartment. With a sigh, he turns on his TV, and picks his textbook back up, resigned to his fate of studying all night. He doesn’t have a test for another couple of weeks, but all of his students have tests between now and then, and he won’t get a chance to study for himself besides tonight. 

His eyes burn every time he blinks. 

\-----

A quick rap on his door startles Doyoung awake. 

He groans, groggy, sore. He looks down at his lap, where he’s holding graph paper in one hand and a pen in the other. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, only remembers sitting down on the floor with his back against the couch and diagrams scattered all over the coffee table. He remembers the sun coming up and Johnny texting him and deciding to ignore it. 

Another knock on his door. Right. 

Doyoung’s joints crack and creak as he gets up from his seat on the floor. He rolls his neck, as he walks over to his door, sore from having been sitting there with his chin in his chest. 

One glance through the peephole shows a shock of light blue hair.  _ Shit.  _ He looks down at himself, clothes crumpled, missing one sock, somehow. His breath probably smells awful. God knows how puffy his face is, right now. But, by now, Taeyong must know he’s at the door, and Doyoung can’t just leave him hanging there, so he steels himself with a heavy breath and unlocks the door. 

“Taeyong,” he says as a greeting. 

Taeyong, just as pretty as Doyoung remembers him being last night, smiles up at him with kind eyes. “You were sleeping.” He sounds incredibly pleased by the fact. 

“I- yeah…” He runs the hand that’s not resting on his door handle through his hair. “Not sure when that happened. What time is it?” He can hear the sleep in his own voice. 

“It’s three in the afternoon.”

Doyoung just groans. Taeyong laughs, quietly. Then Doyoung notices a beautifully sweet aroma, warm and chocolatey, and looks down at Taeyong’s hands. He blinks a few times, processing. 

“Are those cookies?”

Taeyong holds the plate up higher, a heaping pile of chocolate chip cookies on display. “Fresh out of the oven!” He says, peering over the plate. 

Doyoung just gapes at him. “You baked me cookies.”

Taeyong lowers the plate, just as he lowers his brow. “I did.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to?”

Doyoung blinks. Blinks again. “Why?”

Taeyong rolls his eyes. “Oh my god, are you a toddler? I baked you cookies ‘cause you’ve been having a rough go,” he brings the cookies back up to his face, eyes getting wider in this awful puppy-dog way that makes Doyoung want to equal parts kick him in the stomach and kiss his forehead, “and cookies fix everything.”

There’s an abundance of flaws in that logic, but Doyoung stops himself from arguing, for once in his life. He looks down at the cookies, steaming and golden brown and oh so enticing, even if Doyoung isn’t the biggest fan of sweets. And then back up at Taeyong, with his weird hair and his face that’s so symmetrical it’s actually annoying. This beautiful, soft-spoken,  _ insanely kind  _ neighbour that baked him a whole bunch of cookies just because Doyoung knocked on his door and proceeded to overshare with a total stranger. 

Well, Doyoung doesn’t wanna be fucking  _ rude.  _

“Come in,” he says, stepping aside and opening the door wider. 

Taeyong doesn’t look like he was expecting that. “Okay.”

The second Taeyong steps through the threshold into Doyoung’s apartment, he regrets it. He watches Taeyong scan his eyes around the apartment, and Doyoung thinks he would have preferred to have died sitting on his living room floor, earlier, seeing how much of a fucking  _ disaster  _ his apartment is. Between his workload and his insomnia and his spiralling mental state, he hasn’t had the time to tidy up behind himself like he normally does. There’s papers and textbooks and diagrams scattered all over the place, empty takeout boxes and dirty dishes piling up in weird places, as if a garbage can doesn’t exist. Doyoung closes the door behind Taeyong and immediately rushes into the living area. 

“Sorry about the mess,” he spews out, swiftly gathering up all the papers all over his coffee table, clearing off space for Taeyong to put the plate down. “I promise I'm not normally this much of a slob, I just-”

He straightens up, then, meeting Taeyong’s eyes. Taeyong just smiles at him sympathetically. 

“I get it,” he says with a nod. Then, he seats himself down on the couch and puts the plate of cookies down on the newly cleared table. “Sit down, Doyoung, you look tired.”

Doyoung stops in his tracks, where he’s gathering up empty takeout containers in his arms. He blinks at Taeyong, mouth open around a retort, but he doesn’t say anything. 

He hates to admit that Taeyong’s right. He’s so tired he feels like he got hit by a transport truck.

“Let me just throw these away,” he says, padding over to the kitchen. He has to shove everything down into the garbage, since it’s been way too long since he took the trash out. He washes his hands in the sink and then makes his way back to the living room, physically melting into the couch the second he sits down on the end opposite Taeyong. 

“Ah, you shouldn’t have invited me in,” Taeyong says, making to get up. “You should rest-”

“No, it’s okay!” Doyoung jolts up in his seat, reaching a hand out to stop Taeyong. “I shouldn’t sleep anymore, I have a lot of work to do this afternoon, I can’t- I shouldn’t sleep the day away.”

“Well, then, I should still let you get to work.”

“No, I-” he clamps his mouth shut. What is he supposed to say? Even he doesn’t really know why he wants Taeyong to stick around so bad. He comes up with, “You were nice enough to bake me cookies, I’m not going to just kick you out.”

Taeyong narrows his eyes. He’s smart, Doyoung figures, which is bad for him because he’s usually pretty good at outsmarting the people around him. But he can tell Taeyong knows there’s more to it than just good manners. But, luckily for Doyoung, he says nothing about it.

“Fine, but I’m eating some of these cookies.”

“Please, help yourself,” Doyoung says, reaching in for the plate right after Taeyong grabs one for himself. “There’s no way I’ll ever be able to finish these on my own.”

Taeyong’s eyes do that puppy-kitten-baby-thing again as he chews. “How? I can get through this whole plate in twenty minutes.”

Doyoung snorts, holding back his pleased hum at the taste of the cookie. It’s seriously the best cookie he’s ever eaten. “Not a big fan of sweets, honestly.”

“What!?” A few crumbs fly from Taeyong’s mouth as he cries out. “How can you not like sweets?”

Doyoung shrugs. “I don’t  _ dislike  _ sweets but if I had to choose between savoury and sweet, I’d choose savoury every time.”

“Well  _ now  _ you tell me this!”

“I didn’t know you were gonna bake me cookies!” Doyoung retorts. He gestures to said cookie in his hand. “Besides, they’re delicious, and I appreciate the gesture.”

Taeyong looks pleased with himself. “They  _ are  _ delicious.” A moment passes where neither of them talk, just continue to munch on their cookies. Taeyong reaches for a second cookie. “But good to know, for next time.”

“Nuh-uh,” Doyoung says around a full mouth. “You’re not making me any more food. I can feed myself.”

He doesn’t like the look in Taeyong’s eyes when he smiles, knowingly. “Oh, yeah, all those takeout boxes really prove that point.”

Doyoung’s eyes narrow. Does this guy think it’s his  _ job  _ to just challenge him on everything he says? “I have nothing to say to that.”

“Because I’m right.”

Doyoung can’t stand the fact that he is. He has been a  _ lot,  _ since just meeting him yesterday. Doyoung actively decides he hates that about him. 

Before Doyoung can even think of a retort, his phone starts aggressively vibrating from its corner on the coffee table. He excuses himself, to which Taeyong just shakes his head dismissively, and checks his phone. He groans and rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah?” he answers. 

“Bro, you alright? You never responded to my text,” says Johnny, through the receiver. “I thought maybe you finally croaked from fatigue.”

“No croakage, yet,” Doyoung says, and starts getting up from the couch. “Sorry, I’ll just be a sec,” he says to Taeyong. 

Taeyong waves a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Uh, who was that?”

“No one,” Doyoung hisses into the phone, stalking down the hall towards his room. “Just my neighbour.”

“Whom?”

He closes his bedroom door behind him. “He lives downstairs. I met him yesterday and then proceeded to make an absolute fool of myself.”

“Oh,” Johnny says, voice doing that thing it does when he thinks something is  _ especially  _ amusing, “so he’s hot.”

Doyoung puts his forehead in his palm. “Beside the point. I just word vomited all my problems onto him, last night, and then today he baked me cookies.”

“Oh my god!” Johnny says, excited. “So he’s a hot  _ angel!” _

“I’m hanging up-”

“No wait!” Johnny rushes out. “Sorry for bugging. I’m just glad one good thing has happened to you this month.”

Doyoung frowns. “Nothing is happening. He’s just a neighbour who is being neighbourly.”

“On the contrary,” Johnny says in his hideous impression of an english accent, “you get to eat cookies with a hot dude. That’s a good thing that’s happening.”

“You don’t even know what he looks like.”

“But I know  _ you,  _ Doyoung, and if he wasn’t hot you’d just take the cookies and close the door in his face.”

With a pout, “Well that’s just fucking rude.”

“Exactly.”

“Wow. I’m really hanging up, this time.”

“Good. Glad to know you’re alive and also in the vicinity of a potential boyfriend.”

“I hate you. Thank you for checking up on me.”

“Love you too.”

And the line goes dead. Doyoung just stares at his phone screen until it goes black, before he opens his bedroom door and steps back out into the hallway. Taeyong is still sitting in the same spot, making his way through yet another cookie when Doyoung returns. He gazed up at Doyoung curiously. 

“Anything about your dad?” he asks. 

Doyoung actually startles a little bit at the genuine care in his voice. “Oh, no. Just my idiot friend.”

“Idiot, huh?” Taeyong says with a laugh. “Must be your best friend, then.”

“I don’t like admitting to such a fact, but yes.”

Taeyong’s smile is wider than Doyoung’s seen it. “Don’t worry, mine’s an idiot, too.”

Doyoung sighs, sinking further into his couch cushions. He’s so tired, so very, very tired, but he doesn’t want Taeyong to leave - he doesn’t want to be alone. Taeyong’s company is nice, all things considered. Maybe Johnny was sort of onto something. 

Not the potential boyfriend thing.  _ Absolutely  _ not that. 

Taeyong stretches his leg across the couch and pokes Doyoung in the thigh with his toes. “I didn’t really hear you pacing around much last night,” he says.

Doyoung opens his eyes to look at Taeyong, just now realizing they had been closed. “Was doing some studying.”

“Oh, makes sense.”

Doyoung hums noncommittally. He’s too tired to respond with actual words. 

“I really should let you rest,” Taeyong says, shifting to get up, but Doyoung stretches his own leg out and plops it into Taeyong’s lap. Taeyong sits back down, comfortably, getting the hint. 

Even with his head back against the armrest and his eyes shut, he still knows he should carry on conversation if he wants to be greedy and keep Taeyong here. So, he says, “Why on earth are you up so late, all the time, then?”

Taeyong hums, thinking. Under his ankle, he can feel Taeyong relaxing into the cushions. “I work from home, mostly, so I let my bedtime-” Doyoung cracks an eye open to see Taeyong twirl his wrist around vaguely “-slip away from me.”

“What do you do?”

“Oh, nothing exciting,” Taeyong says, humbly. “I read for a publishing house. They send me first draft manuscripts and then I have to write up a review to tell them if it’s worth investing in.”

“What?!” Doyoung says, officially woken up. “That’s an actual job that people do?”

Taeyong blinks at him, his cheeks flushed a twinge pink. “Well, someone’s gotta do it.”

“Huh,” Doyoung says, flopping back down against the armrest, from where he had shot up in excitement. “I never thought about that. Honestly, that’s such a dream job.”

Taeyong shrugs. “It’s alright. I love to read, and to write, but… they send some pretty shitty books, sometimes.”

Doyoung laughs, quietly. “Yeah, that’s gotta suck.”

Taeyong nods. He grabs another cookie. Doyoung thinks if he lets him stay long enough, he may just eat the whole plate.

“Well,” Doyoung says, “if you like to write… have you ever considered writing something of your own?”

Taeyong shakes his head, blushing humbly. “I’m not any good. And it’s not that kind of writing, either. I’m better at thinkpieces and essays, rather than creative writing.”

“Well, then, it sounds like you’ve landed yourself a good gig.”

Taeyong smiles. Doyoung loves the way it looks on him. “Yeah, it’s… it’s not bad. Except when I have to go into the office for a meeting at 10:00 and my sleep schedule is garbage beyond repair.”

That makes Doyoung laugh, embarrassingly loud. Oh, how he can relate. “You should fix that.”

“Coming from you.”

Doyoung’s grin is smug and face-splitting. 

Taeyong pats a cool palm against Doyoung’s ankle, still settled heavily in his lap. “What about you?” he asks. “What are you studying, again?”

“Mechanical engineering,” Doyoung groans back. “Working to get my Master’s right now.”

“Smart cookie.”

Doyoung glances at the plate of cookies on the table, then back at Taeyong’s warm smile. “I am, and it’s the bane of my existence.”

Taeyong’s laugh is delighted and vibrant, his face scrunching up cutely. “Your humility is admirable.”

“No point in denying it!” Doyoung fights back, twisting his foot in Taeyong’s lap to lightly kick him in the stomach. It just makes Taeyong laugh harder. “But, thanks to my remarkable intelligence-” another giggle from Taeyong “-I’m not just studying. I also work as a TA and I tutor, like, five separate students all needing help in different classes.”

“Sheesh,” Taeyong says. He seems to debate his next words, but still, says, “No wonder you look like the living dead.”

Doyoung kicks Taeyong in the stomach again. If Taeyong weren’t so damn cute - and his company so warm and welcome - Doyoung would absolutely be kicking him out. Taeyong hiccups around his laughter, and Doyoung is awfully glad he’s decided to let - make - him stay. 


	2. Chapter 2

It’s a quiet Thursday afternoon, as Taeyong drains the thin slices of sweet potato from their starch water, tossing them in the strainer over his sink. He hums under his breath, some Top 40 song he’s had stuck in his head for literal days. With careful hands, he lays out the sweet potato slices on the baking tray, and reaches for the spices he whisked up together while the sweet potato was soaking.

A glance at the clock tells him he has about thirty minutes until Doyoung will be home from his tutoring session with Yeri. Just enough time for him to pop the potatoes in the oven and pull them out when they’ve turned into chips. 

It’s been routine for about two weeks, now- Where Taeyong will wander up to Doyoung’s apartment, bag of goodies from the convenience store in one hand and his latest manuscript in the other. He’ll sit on Doyoung’s couch, manuscript in his lap, scribbling away some notes to remember, tabbing pages he should go back to, while Doyoung sits at his desk or on the floor in front of the coffee table, chewing anxiously on the end of his pen as he frowns at his work.

Taeyong likes it. Living with his sleep schedule leads to a pretty lonely life, usually asleep while everyone else is awake. Even his best friend, Yuta, he only sees maybe once every two or so weeks. They do their best to get together, but between Taeyong sleeping until late in the afternoon every day, and Yuta spending his days teaching phys ed to a bunch of high schoolers… it gets pretty difficult for their schedules to align.

Speak of the devil, Taeyong’s phone begins to ring on the counter, just as Taeyong is setting the timer for the chips. 

“Hello,” he chimes as he picks up.

“Taeyong Lee, you owe me dinner this weekend.”

Taeyong snorts, tucking his phone between his ear and shoulder and grabbing his dish cloth so he can start cleaning up after himself. “And why is that?”

“Because I tried to hang out with you  _ twice  _ this past week. You usually  _ never  _ turn me down when I offer to go to that bakery on 52nd.”

“Ah,” Taeyong says. “Sorry, I’ve just been-” he doesn’t have an excuse. “...Sorry.”

“What are you hiding from me?” Yuta says, impossible for Taeyong to deek out. “Are you dating? Oh, my god are you finally dating again?”

“No!” Taeyong shouts, sitting down on his couch. He picks at the inseam of his sweatpants. “I’ve just… found someone to keep me company at night.”

“Holy shit, it’s a sex thing!”

_ “No!”  _ Taeyong shouts even louder. “No, it isn’t like that. Just my upstairs neighbour, he’s… a bit of an insomniac, too. So we just sit in silence and do our own work. Together.”

“Okay. Weird.” Yuta has a mouthful of something now, chewing loudly into the receiver. Taeyong cringes at the sound. “He cute?”

Taeyong thinks about when he first met Doyoung, damp and shivering in that elevator, and even with his sallow cheeks and sunken eyes, he was still that type of gorgeous that makes Taeyong clam up to complete uselessness. “He’s alright.”

“You’re a bad liar.”

With an exasperated sigh, Taeyong thinks about the way he’d tensed up around Doyoung, unable to so much as look at him without feeling the tips of his ears burning red. Until Doyoung took the initiative and knocked on Taeyong’s door, standing there in his doorway with his high cheekbones and his pretty eyes and his bunny teeth. Taeyong’s tummy twists.

“Okay, so,  _ maybe  _ he’s kinda great,” Taeyong says, unable to keep anything from Yuta, after all. “He’s gorgeous. And he’s a bit of a grump, and definitely argumentative, but, honestly, I kinda like bickering with him all the time.”

“Ew, what?” Yuta says, words muffled around a huge bite of whatever he’s having for dinner. Taeyong realizes Yuta’s eating pretty late. He hopes he gives himself time to properly digest before going to bed, tonight. “You, the most soft, sweet person alive… has discovered he  _ likes to argue?” _

“It’s… mentally stimulating!” Taeyong counters, weakly. “My brain turns to mush reading these manuscripts, you know that! At least Doyoung keeps me on my toes.”

“Doyoung, huh?”

Taeyong purses his lips. He doesn’t like the way the name sounds on Yuta’s lips. “That is his name, yes.”

“Hmm… Well, so long as he’s keeping you company, I guess,” Yuta says. “If you guys fuck, I better be the first to know.”

Taeyong releases a puff of breath as he puts his forehead in his hand. “You’re so lucky I love you.”

“Yep,” Yuta says, grin audible. “Luckiest man in the world. Dinner on Saturday!”

And then he hangs up.

Taeyong sighs as he tosses his phone down onto the couch. His apartment is filling with the warm, spicy smell of the chips baking in the oven. Taeyong thinks it doesn’t remotely compare to the smell of fresh baked cookies, cupcakes, or brownies. But, it’s still scrumptious, regardless.

The timer goes off, and Taeyong takes the chips out to let them cool for a few minutes, while he puts away his oven mitts and his apron. He chews on his lip in an attempt to tamp down his smile. He’s glad he’s had the chance to make something for Doyoung, again. His current project is an aggressively long fantasy epic, that happens to be more red ink than actual manuscript, at the moment. It’s been eating him alive, and he feels bad having only been able to bring up pre-packaged goodies for Doyoung to snack on.

Taeyong has been paying very close attention, while Doyoung’s cheeks have been filling back out and colour has been returning to his face. 

He puts the chips in a bowl, all crispy and warm and golden around the edges. He’s quite proud of his work, if he does say so, himself.

Manuscript tucked under his arm and bowl of chips in his free hand, he ambles up the stairs to Doyoung’s apartment and struggles to open the door with his hands full. Doyoung always leaves the door unlocked for him, knowing it won’t be long after he gets home that Taeyong is arriving at his doorstep.

He walks in to find his neighbour in the kitchen, his broad back to Taeyong, as he unloads groceries into his cupboards. Taeyong takes the opportunity to admire him. All long legs and broad shoulders and skinny waist. Taeyong stops himself before he turns too red to function.

“Ahem,” he clears his throat as he steps into the kitchen, beside Doyoung. The taller boy doesn’t even startle. 

“Hi,” Doyoung says, voice soft and pretty and dripping with exhaustion. Last night’s tango of Taeyong trying to convince Doyoung to go to bed at around 3:00 so he could at least get a  _ couple  _ hours of shut-eye in was especially difficult. Taeyong didn’t leave until close to 5:00, meaning Doyoung is currently running on fumes.

It worries Taeyong a concerning amount.

Taeyong watches with wide eyes as Doyoung opens the freezer, putting a tub of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream away. “You’re buying sweets, now?”

Doyoung nods, jaw tense with his tiredness. “Got some ice cream and some boxes of cookies. For you.”

Taeyong melts into his slippers. “You didn’t have to-”

“What’s this?” Doyoung says, stepping in close to Taeyong, close enough that he seems to tower over him, despite only being a couple inches taller. He reaches into the bowl that’s still in Taeyong’s grip, taking a chip between his thumb and index finger. He holds it up to inspect it. “Did you make these?”

“Y-yeah,” Taeyong says, words failing him. Doyoung smells like lavender and fabric softener. 

Doyoung puts the chip in his mouth, and his eyes widen as he bites down with an audible  _ crunch.  _ “Mmmm!” he hums, excited. He reaches for another. “They’re good.”

Taeyong thinks his cheeks might split from how widely he smiles. “I’m glad.”

“You’re too good to me,” Doyoung says, taking the bowl from Taeyong’s hand and placing it on the counter. Taeyong shakes his head. “No, really. You don’t have to make me anything.”

“I don’t mind,” Taeyong says quietly with a shrug. He doesn’t know how to tell Doyoung that he loves feeding him, loves seeing his eyes light up at whatever Taeyong makes. Loves making sure that he’s being fed and cared for. “I like to cook.”

“Well, cook for yourself,” Doyoung says. He steps around Taeyong and into the living room, but then he turns around when he remembers he forgot to grab the chips. “Seriously. I’ll gain a hundred pounds if you keep feeding me.”

“That’ the goal,” Taeyong says. Doyoung just narrows his eyes.

“I’m too tired to argue with you today,” Doyoung says, plopping down on his couch with the bowl of sweet potato chips in his lap. 

“A shame,” Taeyong says. He walks on light feet into the living area, feeling a little on-edge and exposed after his conversation with Yuta. He’s suddenly very afraid that his interest might be too obvious.

Doyoung smiles, amused, before he slinks down from the couch onto the ground. He puts the chips down on the coffee table and reaches into his backpack to pull out the orange binder Taeyong knows he uses to keep track of all his tutoring sessions. “I have to write up review worksheets for each of the kids I tutor,” he says with a sigh. “But I have the mental capacity of a cactus, right now.”

“Prickly and dry,” Taeyong says, finding his rhythm, again, now that he’s nestled into Doyoung’s oh-so-comfortable couch. “Seems about right.”

Doyoung flaps an arm behind him until he slaps Taeyong in the knee. So he’s  _ really  _ too tired to argue. Taeyong chews on his cheek with worry.

They get to work, Taeyong opening his manuscript to where he left off, and Doyoung starts flipping through… calculus notes, it looks like. So he’s working on Mark’s worksheet, first. A long while goes on where neither of them say anything. Taeyong just reads and Doyoung scratches some notes down, munching happily on his chips.

Eventually, Doyoung releases a wistful sigh. “I can’t believe you baked me chips,” he says so quietly, Taeyong’s not even sure he’s supposed to hear it. “I tell you I like savoury things and you bake me  _ chips.” _

Taeyong still isn’t sure if Doyoung’s even properly speaking to him. He’s so tired, it’s likely he’s just thinking out loud without realizing. Either way, Taeyong doesn’t have a response… except perhaps  _ Of course I baked for you, idiot, I so desperately want you to like me.  _ He doesn’t think that’ll go over too well.

Eventually, after far too long of a pause for it to seem natural at all, Taeyong says, “Well, you bought me ice cream.”

From where they’re sitting, Taeyong can only see the right side of Doyoung’s face, turned somewhat away from him. He sees his ears turn red and his mouth curl up all smug, even though his eyes still look hollow and tired. “I did, didn’t I?”

Another long stretch without conversation. Taeyong is having plenty difficulty focusing on this book. He will personally write a strongly worded letter to whoever it was that told this person they could write. It’s just fucking awful. No amount of castles or magic is going to disguise the fact that this person thinks every other sentence needs a simile, and is afraid of the verb  _ said.  _

A long, resigned breath, and Doyoung puts his forehead down on the coffee table. Taeyong kicks him lightly in the back in lieu of a question.

Doyoung says, “I was talking to Johnny earlier. He is  _ adamant  _ that we hang out this weekend, says I need to try and relax. I just don’t have the  _ time.” _

Taeyong purses his lips. He gets up from his seat to head over to the freezer. He grabs the tub of ice cream and a spoon from Doyoung’s cutlery drawer. He doesn’t even need to ask, anymore.

“Perhaps you should,” Taeyong says, plopping back down on the couch, tub of ice cream in his lap. “Yuta actually called me earlier and bugged me about hanging out this weekend, too.  _ Mmmmm-”  _ he hums around his first spoonful of ice cream. “Says I don’t see him enough.”

“I see Johnny every day, but,” Doyoung turns to look up at Taeyong, looking so small and sad on the floor. “It’s just to go to classes, and stuff. It’s not the same.”

“Do you think you could actually spare some time this weekend?”

Doyoung nods, reluctantly. “Yeah. I just like to delude myself into thinking I don’t have free time, so I feel better about burying myself in my work.”

Taeyong is glad to hear that Doyoung will be able to get a bit of rest this weekend, time to unwind a little bit. He’s a little sad, though, to think that a day will go by where they don’t spend the night working next to each other. Taeyong’s become too used to spending all his time with Doyoung, too used to it too soon. 

He chews on his lip a little, bringing up the nerve to say, “Come to dinner with Yuta and me.”

Doyoung, munching on another sweet potato chip - he’s nearly finished the bowl - blinks up at Taeyong with wide, tired eyes. “Hmm?”

“On Saturday,” Taeyong says. He takes another bite of ice cream to try to placate his shaking voice. He wants Doyoung to come, he doesn’t want to miss a  _ day  _ with him - a tad concerning. “Yuta and I are going for dinner. You and Johnny should come with.”

“Okay,” Doyoung says without a second thought. The hopefulness in Taeyong sees a bit of excitement in Doyoung’s eyes, but he tries not to let himself get too carried away thinking about it. Then, Doyoung’s expression drops. “What’s going to happen when we put our idiot friends in one room?”

Taeyong groans around his next bite of ice cream. “You’re right, it’ll be horrible.”

The corner of Doyoung’s mouth quirks up. “Can’t be much worse than dealing with you.”

Taeyong kicks his foot out harder this time, and Doyoung laughs as his back digs into the coffee table. Taeyong can’t fight the smile from inching across his face. That’s more like him.

They go back to work, Taeyong nearly finishing the tub of ice cream before he gets up to put it away. He has this uncontrollable giddy excitement bubbling within him, and he hates to think that it comes from Doyoung merely agreeing to spend time with him this weekend. He chews on his bottom lip as he washes his spoon in the sink, trying to keep his smile from growing to obnoxious sizes. He tugs at the sleeves of his shirt, pulling them over his hands, as he waddles back over to the couch.

Doyoung is just calmly scribbling down equations onto paper. Taeyong tries to focus back on his manuscript.

He’s shivering, though, regretting his choice of wearing just a long-sleeve t-shirt from Hollister that he’s had since high school, especially now that he’s had that ice cream. He feels like Doyoung the first day they met. 

Taeyong glances around the living room, in search of a throw blanket or something. He doesn’t see any. “You don’t have a blanket out here?”

Doyoung turns to face him. “Uh, no. Are you cold?”

Taeyong nods.

“Okay,” Doyoung says, getting up from his seat on the floor. He heads down the hallway, toward his room, and Taeyong just watches him go.

He returns, hoodie in hand. Taeyong’s heart effectively halts in his chest. “You shouldn’t have had all that ice cream!” Doyoung scolds. “I watched you eat that entire tub, that much sugar’s going to kill you.”

Taeyong pouts, accepting the sweater as it’s handed to him. He was sure Doyoung didn’t even spare him a glance - he’s incredibly tuned in to Doyoung’s every move. “It’s yummy.”

Doyoung shakes his head. “Your heart just pumps syrup, at this point.”

“You don’t just have a blanket?” Taeyong says, sitting there holding the sweater in his lap. It’s big and it’s soft and it’ll certainly keep him warm, but… he doesn’t think he’s emotionally stable enough to wear Doyoung’s sweater without reading way too far into it.

Doyoung shrugs. “Nah, I’ve just never thought to get one, besides the one on my bed.”

Accepting his fate, Taeyong just stiffly nods and slips the hoodie on over his shoulders. It smells like lavender and fabric softener, just like Doyoung always does. He doesn’t know whether he positively melts because of the scent, or because it instantly warms him to his bones, toes curling and his eyes shutting as he sinks into the couch like he’s sitting on a cloud.

He squints an eye open to see Doyoung looking at him, his brows furrowed incredulously, and a crooked little smile on his lips.

“What?” Taeyong asks.

Doyoung shakes his head, his expression immediately dropping, as if he didn’t even realize he had been making that face in the first place. “Nothing.”

Taeyong sighs, “Fine, don’t tell me.” He gets up to open the fridge, reaching for that bottle of strawberry milk he knew he left here yesterday. When he stands back up, he startles to see Doyoung walking into the kitchen, as well, empty bowl of chips in hand.

Doyoung puts the bowl in the sink, then steps up beside Taeyong to reach into the fridge, himself. He grabs a bottle of water, still looking at Taeyong from the corner of his eye, his mouth still kinda pulled into that amused little smirk.

_ “What?”  _ Taeyong says, more insistent this time.

Doyoung’s cheeks flush pink. “Ah, it’s just-” he shakes his head “-you’re not that much smaller than me… why do you look so tiny in it?”

Taeyong looks down at the sweater. He can admit, it kind of swallows him whole. Petulantly, he says, “So what if I’m little?”

“Never said it was a bad thing,” Doyoung says, walking away. “The smaller you are, the easier it is for me to chuck you across the room if I need to.”

“With your skinny arms?” Taeyong says, ambling after Doyoung into the living room. “Dream on.”

“All the internalized fury I have towards you will give me the strength,” Doyoung replies, coolly. He grabs his binder and pen and plops down on the end of the couch opposite from where Taeyong normally sits. “Share the couch with me.”

“Like I have much choice,” Taeyong says, sitting down and returning to his manuscript.

The next few hours roll on peacefully, both of them just doing their own work quietly. They wrestle with each other’s legs, occasionally, a fight for who’s allowed to take up more of the couch. Taeyong’ at a disadvantage, considering how unfairly long Doyoung’s legs are. In the end, they decide on a truce, and just lay there with their legs tangled between them. 

Taeyong startles when he hears the sound of Doyoung lightly snoring. He glances overtop of his manuscript at Doyoung, who’s chin has fallen into his chest, his mouth open as he snoozes. Taeyong turns his head to look at the clock on Doyoung’s desk. 2:06a.m. He knows Doyoung doesn’t have classes until 9:00 tomorrow, so at this rate he can get a whole 6 hours of sleep, which is  _ plenty  _ compared to what he’s been getting, lately. 

Carefully, Taeyong detangles his legs from Doyoung and gets off the couch. He takes Doyoung’s notes and pen from his hands as gently as possible, putting them on the coffee table. Then, he shakes Doyoung’s shoulders, just subtly.

“Doyoung,” he whispers. Doyoung’s eyes blink open. Taeyong smiles down at him. “C’mon. Let’s get you to bed.”

“Hmm?” Doyoung frowns, still a little disoriented. He looks down at his empty hands. “Th- ...worksh’ts.”

“Tomorrow,” Taeyong says, urging Doyoung up from the couch. Absently, Doyoung waddles towards the bathroom. “Yeah, go get ready for bed. Good boy.”

“Not a dog.”

“You’re right,” Taeyong says, following Doyoung down the hallway but turning opposite, into Doyoung’s bedroom. “You’re a bunny.”

Doyoung just grumbles at that. Taeyong laughs to himself as he heads into Doyoung’s room, plugging in Doyoung’s phone and making sure his alarm is set for 8:00. He pulls the blankets back, on Doyoung’s perfectly made bed, so that he can just climb in. 

He does, a few moments later, still grumbling something about being too manly to be a bunny. Taeyong just snorts, but doesn’t fight back. Doyoung needs to  _ sleep,  _ not argue. 

“Night, Tyong,” Doyoung mumbles into the pillow, as Taeyong is just about to leave his room. 

“Night, bunny,” he replies, not giving Doyoung any time to protest before he’s heading down the hallway. 

Quietly, he puts Doyoung’s notes away and tucks them safely into his backpack. He washes the bowl in the sink, puts the empty bottles in the recycling bin. Tomorrow is his light classes day, so he takes out the heavier textbooks from his bag that don’t need to be in there, placing them neatly onto his desk. He shuts all the lights off behind him, bowl tucked under his arm, and turns the lock mechanism on the door handle, before leaving and closing the door behind him. It’s not the deadbolt, but it’s the most Taeyong can do without a key. 

He slowly ambles back down the stairs into his own apartment. It isn’t until the bowl is back in the cupboard and his teeth are brushed and he’s nearly asleep that he realizes he’s still wearing Doyoung’s sweater. 

If he pulls the sweater up over his nose, so he can breathe nothing but the smell of lavender and fabric softener as he falls asleep with a smitten smile… No one is to know. 

\-----

Taeyong’s knee is bouncing underneath the table. He’s not nervous about seeing Doyoung - he saw him yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. He’s nervous about what the man sitting next to him, in the booth, is going to do to embarrass him. 

“I need to make this perfectly clear,” Taeyong says, speaking very slowly and enunciating very clearly, as one often needs to do when speaking to Yuta. “Doyoung is my  _ neighbour  _ and my  _ friend.  _ My crush on him is just that. A dumb, little crush. I swear to god, Yuta Nakamoto, if you so much as  _ breathe  _ towards the topic of a relationship between Doyoung and I, or frankly  _ anybody,  _ I will disown you. And you will no longer get to enjoy my sriracha casserole.”

Yuta, for all he's worth, actually looks offended. “You can’t disown me,” he says. “I’m your only friend.”

Taeyong turns his nose up, indignant. “That’s not true. I have Doyoung now.” Before Yuta can make some sly comment, he adds, “Also Jaehyun talks to me sometimes.”

“Right,” Yuta says, flatly. He huffs a sigh, leaning his shoulders against the back of the booth. Taeyong just sits there and listens to the ambience of the restaurant, just a cozy little Korean BBQ place that Taeyong picked out. He figured Doyoung might be feeling a little homesick. 

The door chimes, as it allows more guests to come in, and Taeyong doesn’t dare look up. He holds his breath, and watches the condensation on his glass of water drip down onto the coaster. 

“Surely, he isn’t the big one,” Yuta murmurs. 

Taeyong finally lets himself look up. Doyoung and some tall guy - presumably Johnny, who Yuta must be talking about - are walking in their direction. 

“No,” Taeyong answers. Yuta turns to him, leans into his space, about to say  _ something,  _ but Doyoung and Johnny are already two steps away, so Taeyong just elbows him in the ribs. It’s an effective way to shut him up. 

“Hey,” Doyoung says, sliding into the booth, across from Taeyong. “Weird seeing you  _ not  _ in pajamas.”

“Weird seeing you not working.”

“My diligence is a virtue.”

“Diligence? More like y-”

_ “Ahem!” _

Right. Yuta is next to him. Taeyong rolls his eyes, just for show, before saying, “Yuta, this is Doyoung. Doyoung, Yuta.”

And Doyoung says, “Johnny, meet Taeyong. Taeyong, meet Johnny.”

And Johnny says, “Yuta, meet Johnny, Johnny meet Yuta,” and everyone laughs. 

Now that the table is full, the waiter swings by and takes their orders. They order way too much food for four men, and a concerning number of drinks, considering Taeyong’s tolerance. But, it’s fine, because once the waiter walks away with their order memorized, everyone is relaxed and comfortable in their seat. Well, as comfortable Taeyong’s gonna  _ get,  _ with Yuta and Doyoung in one room together. 

“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Taeyong,” Johnny says, kick starting the conversation. His voice is deep, but gentle and amicable. “Doyoung has talked about you so much.”

“All horrible things,” Doyoung cuts in. Taeyong kicks him under the table. 

Johnny, unbothered, continues, “Now that I’m finally meeting you I see everything he’s been saying.”

Taeyong cocks his head to the side, curious. “Whatever is that supposed to mean?”

Doyoung is sinking further into the booth. He’s practically under the table. 

Johnny just smiles, mischievous. “Ah, just- it’s no wonder he embarrassed the hell out of himself when you first met.”

_ “Jonathan,”  _ Doyoung warns. 

Johnny rolls his eyes. “That’s  _ not  _ my name.”

“Fine,” Doyoung says, rather pointedly.  _ “Youngho.” _

“Low blow, Kim.”

Taeyong watches on, confused but just as equally amused. But then, worry strikes him. Yuta has been quiet. Too quiet. 

Tentatively, he glances over at his friend, only to find him sitting and watching, smiling, thinking. He notices Taeyong looking at him and turns to give him a smile, too. A smile that  _ says  _ something, something like his approval, or his amusement, or his enlightenment. Taeyong can't figure it out. 

“So, Johnny,” Yuta says, suddenly, interrupting the low bickering that Doyoung and Johnny were exchanging. “You look like you play sports-”

And that’s all Taeyong needs before he’s tuning him out. He meets Doyoung’s gaze from across the table. He can’t stop the warm smile from splitting his cheeks. Even Doyoung offers him a crooked, gummy smile. 

“You look…” Taeyong searches for the word, “rested.”

“Ah,” Doyoung says shyly, running a hand down his face. His hair is clean and floppy and the navy blue jacket he has yet to take off looks nice on him. Taeyong internally sighs. “Yeah, I slept in today. Convinced myself that it’s  _ fine  _ to do nothing on a Saturday.”

Taeyong waves a hand dismissively. “Knowing you, you’ll just work ten-fold next week to make up for it.”

Doyoung’s smile is knowing. “Got that right.”

Taeyong clicks his tongue, shaking his head with disapproval. “What am I gonna do with you?”

“Oh, I’ll be  _ fine,”  _ Doyoung insists. “I do have  _ you  _ to tuck me in, after all.”

Taeyong rests an elbow on the table, pointing an accusatory finger in Doyoung’s face. “I am not your mother, Doyoung Kim!”

Doyoung, instead of biting back with something clever to say, grabs Taeyong’s finger and bends it back. Taeyong yelps, far too loud for a restaurant this size, and fights back, laughing. They nearly knock over their waters as they push and pull at each other’s arms across the table, laughing despite the determined, competitive fires in their eyes. 

He notices, suddenly, that Yuta and Johnny have stopped talking, and he glances over to find them just watching on, heads cocked, curious. They look annoyingly pleased with themselves, for some reason. Taeyong feels his cheeks flush. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Doyoung says to Johnny. “I’m just trying to kick his ass.”

“Oh, like you have it in you,” Taeyong snaps back, reflexively. He earns a kick to his shins under the table, and in his moment of weakness Doyoung yanks on Taeyong’s hand until he’s flopping down half on top of the table. Yuta swipes Taeyong’s glass out from under him just in time. 

“Fine!” Taeyong wheezes, laughter untameable. “Fine, you win!”

Doyoung releases him, gummy grin smug and cocky. Taeyong hates that he loves the way it looks on him. 

“What’s my prize?” Doyoung says.

Taeyong, who’s now sitting normally in his seat, again, blinks back at him. “Prize?”

“For winning,” Doyoung says. “What do I get?”

Taeyong thinks. “I’ll cook you a proper dinner next week.”

Doyoung frowns, shaking his head, petulant. “You cook for me anyway. I need a  _ real prize.” _

Yuta looks like he’s about to say something extremely shameful. To stop him, Taeyong blurts out, “Raincheck. You tell me when you need to cash the prize.”

“Oh,” Doyoung’s grin spreads wider, pleased. “I love the power that contains.”

“You are just delightfully ferocious, aren’t you?” Yuta interrupts. Taeyong wants to die, glancing at the glimmer in Yuta’s eye. 

“Uhh,” Doyoung says, unsure of how to respond. 

“Ferocious, yes,” Taeyong responds, for him. “Delightful? Absolutely not.”

Doyoung looks like he wants to retort, but the waiter comes around with their drinks and a huge tray of food. Taeyong glances at Yuta, exchanges a  _ look  _ with him. Yuta looks pompous and Taeyong crumbles under his smart-assery. He figures now’s as good a time as any to just hide behind all that food and stuff his face. 

\-----

“So he’s cute,” Yuta says, as he and Taeyong walk back towards Yuta’s apartment, which isn’t very far. 

Taeyong groans, shoving his hands further into his pockets. It’s getting so chilly. Taeyong is always too cold as it is, this weather is just unnecessary. “I know he is.”

“I was talking about Johnny,” Yuta says, but his mischievous smile gives him away. “I’m kidding. Kind of. Johnny is cute but that’s not what we’re talking about.”

“Yuta-”

“Doyoung is cute,” Yuta says finitely. “And definitely obsessed with you.”

The toe of Taeyong’s boot catches on the crack of the uneven sidewalk and he stumbles forward gracelessly. Yuta doesn’t even blink. “Wh- sh-...  _ what?” _

“You heard me.”

“I heard you,” Taeyong says, straight on his feet again, “and you’re delusional.”

Yuta snorts, looking extremely unimpressed. “Please, Taeyong, the guy wouldn’t stop metaphorically pulling on your metaphorical pigtails.”

“He’s just like that,” Taeyong says with a pout. “You saw how he bickered with Johnny, too.”

“Fine,” Yuta says with a defeated sigh. “Live in denial, see if I care.”

Taeyong shakes his head. “I’m not-” 

But he decides it best not to bother arguing about this. It isn’t like Taeyong needed to prove anything to  _ Yuta.  _ Yuta has no impact on Taeyong’s current love life - or lack thereof. The most Yuta can do is sit back and watch shit happen. It’s  _ Taeyong  _ that knows what’s really happening. 

Because, really, Doyoung doesn’t have the time or capacity to have feelings for Taeyong. Doyoung, who is so handsome and smart and dedicated and hard-working, doesn’t have the  _ time of day  _ to be thinking about little old Taeyong. Just that little, quiet downstairs neighbour who is just there, in his living room, like the potted plant in the corner beside the TV. He fills up the space, around Doyoung. Nothing more. 

And that’s okay. 

Doyoung doesn’t have to be interested in Taeyong because Taeyong isn’t all that interesting. Doyoung has far more important things happening in his life than Taeyong’s knobby knuckles knocking on his door. 

He tries not to feel too sad about it. 

\-----

The next few weeks are midterms hell. Taeyong watches Doyoung spiral out of control. He has three different culminating projects of his own, on top of exams and quizzes, let alone that of his TA class and the kids he tutors. Taeyong is powerless but to just stand there and watch Doyoung get less and less sleep every night, watch his shoulders permanently stick to his ears with tension. Despite Taeyong’s best efforts, he’s barely eating, too anxious to stomach much, but at least Taeyong convinces him to have a smoothie here and there, and drink plenty of water - on top of the copious amounts of caffeine he’s been consuming. 

Even on Halloween, Taeyong showed up at Doyoung’s apartment in a dragon onesie, even knocked on his door with a cheery, “Trick or treat!” and all Doyoung had in him was a sweet, tired smile, before going into his kitchen and handing Taeyong a giant box of assorted Halloween candy. That he had bought just for him. They stayed up until 5:00am, Taeyong holding the flash cards as he quizzed Doyoung on things he needed to review. 

Taeyong submits his review on that god awful fantasy epic -  _ finally  _ \- and Doyoung powers through all of his midterms with ease, despite the shadows under his eyes and permanent jitter in his fingers. 

He’s just reading over an email from his boss, a reminder of their meeting tomorrow before lunch, when there’s a knock on his door. Curious, Taeyong tip toes up to the door, and peers through the peephole to see messy black hair and a frown. Weird, Doyoung  _ never  _ comes down to Taeyong’s. It’s like an unspoken agreement that they spend their time in Doyoung’s living room. 

Quickly, he unlocks and opens the door. “Doyoung.”

Doyoung stands before him, gaunt and so pale he’s nearly green. He doesn’t say anything, just continues to stand there and frown. 

So, Taeyong continues, “I was just about to text you, see how your last exam went.”

“It was fine,” Doyoung croaks, voice hoarse and nearly gone. Taeyong startles. 

“Oh my god,” he reaches up, places a palm on Doyoung’s forehead. It burns hot under his touch. “You’re sick!”

Doyoung just slightly nods. 

Taeyong grabs him by the arms and drags him inside. Doyoung puts up no fight, waddling like a zombie over to the couch under Taeyong’s guidance. Carefully, he sits down, blinking up at Taeyong with tired eyes. 

“Stay here, I’m going to boil you up some broth. Have you eaten?”

Doyoung shakes his head. 

“Pshh,” Taeyong says, fondly shaking his head. “You worked yourself to the bone, Doie.”

A long second passes before Doyoung just nods. Taeyong frowns at his silence. “Throat hurt?” He earns another nod. 

At that, Taeyong heads over to his kitchen to grab a saucepan and his box of chicken broth. He fills up the pot with a bit of broth and puts it on the stove, turning on the burner. He stops at the fridge, grabbing a bottle of aloe water, and then heads back in the living room to take a seat next to Doyoung. 

He hands the bottle to Doyoung. “Sip this gently. It’ll soothe your throat.” Doyoung takes a tentative sip, wincing a little as it goes down. Taeyong smiles sadly. “I’m glad to hear that your exams have gone well.”

Doyoung takes another sip, more confident this time, before putting the cap back on and placing it on the coffee table. “Yeah,” he manages to say, despite how rough his voice is. 

He turns to look at Taeyong and Taeyong looks back. Doyoung seems to ponder something a moment, eyes tired but swimming with contemplation. Taeyong just bunches up his sleeves into his fists as he waits. 

Until Doyoung shifts in his seat, until his head is in Taeyong’s lap, curled up on his side, burying his face in the fabric over Taeyong’s belly. He can’t hold back the nervous giggle that he lets out when Doyoung squirms in close and closes his eyes. Taeyong’s heart is hammering at the sight, at Doyoung warm and heavy in his lap, looking ready to fall asleep. He forces himself to relax, dropping a hand to card it through Doyoung’s hair. Doyoung somehow scoots in even closer. 

Some peaceful, quiet time passes, where Taeyong just gently pets Doyoung’s hair and admires the curve of his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, before Doyoung murmurs, “You’re wearing my sweater.”

Taeyong’s free hand immediately flies up to grab the neckline of the hoodie, panicking. He’s fully aware that he still has it, and has been hoarding it purposely for his own personal use all this time. He can’t be helped if it’s just oh so soft and cozy. And reminds him a little - a lot - of Doyoung. So what if he likes to wear it and pretend he’s in his  _ boyfriend’s _ sweater? But now that Doyoung’s brought it up, he feels guilty for holding onto it for so long. 

“Sorry,” he says. 

“S’okay. You look soft in it.” Taeyong’s heart feels like it’s about to crack a few ribs. Doyoung takes a deep breath, nose digging into Taeyong’s stomach. “Smells like you now.”

Taeyong actually feels, for a moment, like he might throw up. Before he can say anything, though, he hears the sound of the broth boiling in the kitchen. He’s never been so grateful for broth in his life. Lord knows what sound could have come out of his mouth instead of words. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, gently lifting Doyoung’s head so he can slide out from under him, tucking a pillow under his head instead. 

Deep breath in, slowly let it out. Repeat. Taeyong tries to cool his nerves as he turns off the burner and pours the steaming broth into a bowl. His heart won’t stop battering away in his chest. He thinks this little crush of his might be spiraling out of control. 

Not like there’s much he can do about it. It’s all Doyoung’s fault. 

He returns to the living room, and places the bowl down on the coffee table so he can help Doyoung sit up. He grabs his throw blanket from behind the couch and wraps it around Doyoung’s shoulders. He almost makes a snarky comment about the virtues of having a spare blanket.  _ Almost.  _

“Here,” Taeyong says, bringing the first spoonful up to his own lips so he can blow the steam off of it, then holds it out to Doyoung. 

Doyoung frowns and gently pushes Taeyong’s hand away. “I can feed myself.”

“It’s fine, Doie-”

“I just-” he breaks into a fit of coughs “-came here to whine, not to be babied.”

“I’m not babying you,” Taeyong says. Doyoung shoots him a pointed glare. “Okay, maybe I’m babying you.”

Voice so hoarse it’s almost laughable, Doyoung says, “I can take care of myself.”

“You don’t understand,” Taeyong says, “I like taking care of people. I’m  _ good  _ at taking care of people. Let me have this.”

Doyoung stares at Taeyong incredulously, glancing between each of Taeyong’s eyes as he thinks. Eventually, he snorts, and lets his shoulders relax. “Fine.” 

Taeyong is pleased as a peach. “Okay, open up,” he says, raising the spoonful of broth again. “Here comes the airplane!”

Doyoung clamps his mouth shut and shoots Taeyong a glare that he can physically feel burning his skin. Taeyong just laughs. He loves a sick, weak Doyoung. He has so much power over him like this. 

\-----

After Doyoung has been fed, hydrated, and stuffed full of cold meds and painkillers, Taeyong is shoving him into bed, with a surprising amount of reluctance from Doyoung. 

“I can just go home,” Doyoung is arguing. The painkillers have made him braver to speak, his throat hurting a little less. “I don’t wanna get my germs all over your bed.”

“It’s fine, Doie,” Taeyong says placatingly, pulling the covers up over Doyoung’s shoulders. “My sheets are due for a wash, anyway.”

Doyoung is visibly melting into the mattress, but he still frowns. “I just feel rude taking up your bed while you…” he trails off. 

Taeyong sighs, patting Doyoung’s bangs off his forehead. “Please just go to sleep. You need to sleep off this fever.”

Doyoung reaches a hand up to grip Taeyong’s wrist. Very quietly, hesitantly, he says, “Stay?”

Taeyong’s heart is doing that thing again. “Ah, I should-”

“Please?” Doyoung’s cheeks flush, and he looks actually embarrassed. Taeyong’s stomach is doing backflips. “I don’t… wanna be alone.”

The voice in his head telling Taeyong to  _ GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE _ is extremely loud, and with good reason. His feelings are already getting out of control and surely climbing into his double bed with a sick and soft and sleepy Doyoung will do nothing to help the situation. Because despite the fact that Doyoung is clammy and pale and extremely contagious, there isn’t much that could probably stop Taeyong from kissing him, once his brain tells him he’s just gotta, and that’s a whole separate disaster that he’s actively trying to avoid. 

But Doyoung is looking up at him with sad, pleading eyes, his cheeks and ears still tinged pink with bashfulness at his request. Taeyong is only so strong. He’s only human. 

“But,” he  _ can’t.  _ He really, really can’t. It’ll break his heart too much. 

“I’m cashing in my prize,” Doyoung says, resolute. It’s all Taeyong needs to let his guard down completely. 

A sigh. “Fine.”

Doyoung’s face lights up, pushing the blankets down so Taeyong can climb in, next to him. Immediately, he wraps his arms tightly around Taeyong’s ribs and pulls him in close. Taeyong tries to convince himself it’s all the medication that’s giving Doyoung the incentive to do this. 

“You’re so easy to boss around,” Doyoung says, chin resting on top of Taeyong’s head. His smile is audible around his words. 

Tentatively, Taeyong wraps his arms around Doyoung’s skinny waist, turning his head so his ear is pressed to Doyoung’s sternum and he can breathe actual air instead of just the scent of Doyoung’s fabric softener. Though, that’s still taking up most of his senses. 

“You’re just bossy,” he says, a little too late for it to seem a natural amount of time for a response. Taeyong can’t help it, his mind has been set into panic mode and was shut down. He’s too focussed trying to cool his erratic heartbeat and level his breathing. 

Doyoung hums noncommittally in response, and then it’s silence after that. It’s quiet for so long, just the sound of their breathing and Taeyong’s aggressively noisy thoughts, that he thinks Doyoung must have fallen asleep. He just takes the opportunity given to him to hold him close, breathe him in, his lavender and fabric softener scent. He’s warm, thanks to his fever, and Taeyong feels brave enough to squeeze him a little tighter. 

He counts the  _ tha-thumps  _ of Doyoung’s heartbeat, the seconds between breaths. He reminds himself not to get used to it, no matter how used to it he’s already become. 

Suddenly, “Do you miss your family?”

Taeyong frowns. He thought Doyoung had long been asleep. “Yeah, all the time,” he says. “They aren’t that far, only a few states away, and my sister lives just an hour from here with her husband and my nephew, but still. Even at that I still miss them when I don’t see them.”

Doyoung is quiet for a long while. Taeyong just waits, knowing family is a sensitive topic for Doyoung, these days. He wonders, laced with worry, just how much Doyoung has been thinking about his family, lately, and Taeyong wonders how things have been going, with his dad. He hasn’t mentioned anything in quite some time. 

Taeyong continues, “I miss them so much and they’re only a quick road trip away. I can only imagine how hard it is for you.”

“I haven’t stopped thinking about them for weeks,” Doyoung says, squeezing Taeyong even tighter against him. Taeyong squeezes back. “Even though I’m so busy trying to distract myself with school, I-”

He cuts himself off with a quiet cough. Taeyong hears it rattling in his chest. 

Gently, Taeyong drags his palm up Doyoung’s back, and down again, soothing. “How’s he doing?” Taeyong whispers. “Have you heard anything?”

Doyoung takes a second, buries his nose in Taeyong’s hair. The deep breath he takes reminds Taeyong of how intimate their position is, just holding each other impossibly close, like this, now even more intimate as they open themselves up and share. Vulnerable. And Taeyong realizes, then, that he’s seen Doyoung all types of ways. He’s seen him stressed and angry and tired and happy and cocky and goofy and sick and hungry. But this- this is the first time Taeyong has seen him really and truly  _ vulnerable.  _

“The treatment has been helping,” Doyoung says. “He feels better. Is more active. But…” he trails off, and Taeyong knows he quiets in order to stop himself from crying. Or to stop Taeyong from noticing. For his sake, Taeyong pretends he doesn’t. “He’s still- you know. He’s still getting worse, even if the treatment convinces him otherwise.”

Taeyong squeezes Doyoung so tight it probably hurts him. He doesn’t receive a complaint. “I’m so sorry, Doie.”

A sniffle. “Thanks, Yongie. Means a lot.” Taeyong’s heart skips a beat, maybe two. “Really.”

The moment is far too tender, too honest. Taeyong has to break the mood before he does something extremely stupid. So he snorts, says, “But you hate me.”

“I don’t,” Doyoung says, seemingly wrapping his arms around Taeyong even more firmly, more securely. “You’ve been nice to me from the start.”

So much for that. “It’s nothing.”

“I was a complete stranger at your door, and you took the time to bake me cookies.”

“It takes like 20 minutes to bake-”

“And I’ve done nothing but argue with you and give you hell.”

Taeyong frowns. He turns his head, pressing his nose against Doyoung’s chest and closing his eyes. “I don’t mind.” His voice is so quiet, so timid. “I like what we have.”

He deludes himself into thinking he can hear Doyoung’s heart begin to race. Taeyong just continues stroking his back soothingly, waiting for a reply. 

What he gets is a simple, “me, too.”

Taeyong doesn’t understand why he feels his heart drop into his stomach at that. Just heavy lead weighing down on his gut, making him feel sluggish and sad. He takes a deep breath of lavender and fabric softener, and lets himself pretend that this embrace means anything more than a friend comforting a friend. 

“You should sleep,” he whispers. 

_ “Mmmm,”  _ is the response he gets from Doyoung, who seems to finally be feeling the effect of his cold meds. 

Taeyong lays there in his arms until Doyoung’s heart rate slows and his breath evens out. He wonders, distantly, what Doyoung could be dreaming about. He hopes to god it’s him.

\-----

He isn’t sure what time he fell asleep, but eventually the sound of his alarm is what wakes him. Taeyong thinks to himself, back to what last night entailed. He got up, once Doyoung was asleep enough not to notice his absence, and made some stew for when Doyoung inevitably woke up. But he didn’t, he just kept on sleeping his fever away and Taeyong wasn’t about to wake him up, so he just put the stew in the fridge and went back to bed. 

And now, it’s 9:00 in the morning, and Taeyong has to be at the publishing house in an hour. And there’s a very ill, very cute boy in his bed. With his arm slung over Taeyong’s waist. 

“Shit,” he hisses, sliding out of bed. Doyoung whines, sleepily, at the loss of contact and Taeyong thinks it’s indescribably adorable. 

He fumbles around his room as he gets ready, tripping over his fancy (read: work) pants as he tries to get them on, sifting hastily through his closet for a decent shirt. All the while, he keeps glancing back at a sleeping Doyoung, not wanting to leave him alone in this state. What if he wakes up hungry? What if he wakes up and his fever isn't gone yet? Who’s going to ensure that Doyoung doesn’t just decide to return to his own apartment, lock the door, and stubbornly fend for himself?

Sighing, he picks up Doyoung’s phone from the night table, punches in the password Doyoung gave to him a couple weeks ago, and finds Johnny’s contact. 

“Hey,” he picks up on the second ring. “Stay up all night again?”

“Actually, it’s Taeyong,” he says, nervous for some reason. 

“Oh,” Johnny sounds…  _ delighted.  _ “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Doyoung’s at my place,” he starts. “He showed up yesterday with a bad fever and I managed to medicate him and get him to bed, but-” Doyoung groans in his sleep, curling up into a ball. Taeyong purses his lips and lowers his voice. “I have a meeting in 45 minutes, and I was wondering if you could come over and make sure he doesn’t-”

“Suddenly decide he can take care of this on his own?” Johnny finishes his sentence. 

Taeyong smiles. “Exactly.”

“I’ll be there in 10.”

“I owe you my life,” Taeyong says, not even bothering to feel embarrassed by how important this sounds to him. Because it  _ is  _ important. And Johnny is allowed to know that.

It’s a whole nine minutes later that there’s a knock at Taeyong’s door. He opens it up to find Johnny, looking soft and comfy in his sweatpants and his puffy coat. He smiles at Taeyong, which Taeyoung returns before stepping aside to let Johnny in. 

“There’s some stew in the fridge,” Taeyong says, leading Johnny to the bedroom. “He’ll probably be starved when he wakes up. But if his fever isn’t broken by then, don’t give him too much. I don’t want to feed the fever.”

Johnny just follows quietly, nodding along to everything Taeyong says. It isn’t until he opens the bedroom door to find a snoozing Doyoung that Johnny finally breaks his silence to coo at his friend. He rushes over to him, starts patting his head and teasing him with a baby voice, making Taeyong giggle. 

“Oh, big baby,” Johnny is saying. Doyoung is grumpily trying to shove Johnny’s face away with the palm of his hand. 

Taeyong steps in, pressing his hand to Doyoung’s forehead. It’s still warm. “I gotta go in for a meeting,” Taeyong says softly, pushing Doyoung’s bangs back as he cards the hand from his forehead to the crown of his head. “Johnny’s here to substitute ‘til I get back.”

Johnny beams. Doyoung squints one eye open at him, unimpressed. 

“I’ll see you in a bit, okay, Doie?” Taeyong says, stepping away. 

Hoarsely, Doyoung grumbles. “Bye, Yongie.”

Shrugging on his coat and opening his front door, he hears Johnny say, “You let him call you  _ Doie!?”  _ before the door is shut behind him. 

Taeyong is grumpy, on his walk to the metro. He’s grumpy that he has to leave Doyoung in his state, though he’s sure Johnny is plenty capable of simply making sure he doesn’t bolt to his own apartment. But he’s grumpy he has to go to this meeting at all, his bosses all  _ disappointed  _ that the fantasy epic from hell received such a negative review. Turns out it was written by some TV actress who wants to waltz into world of literature without any writing experience. 

Taeyong does  _ not  _ have the energy for this, today. 

And he doesn’t think he’ll ever get that time back - those two god forsaken hours of his life spent trying to convince all of his higher-ups that the amount of work it would take to make this novel remotely readable is not worth the investment. No star power name will make this book any better. Not when there isn’t a single likeable or interesting character, no real stakes, an aimless journey with confusing world building and inconsistent rules of magic. 

It’s a complete waste of his time and his effort. The executives approve it to the next stage of editing, anyway. 

At least they ensured he’ll receive a bonus, as they’ll be using all of his (copious, abundant) points he brought up in his review during the editing process. 

He heaves a sigh of relief, once he’s finally at his front door. He unlocks it, opens it, and steps inside to the sound of his TV on and low voices talking amongst themselves. He smiles to himself, as he shrugs off his coat, then cranes his neck to look over at the living room area to see Doyoung curled up on the couch with a bowl of stew in his hands and the throw blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Johnny is seated in the armchair, his back to Taeyong, and he’s saying something that Doyoung is drowsily nodding along to. 

“The human plague rises,” Taeyong says, plopping down on the couch next to Doyoung. “You look better.”

And he does, despite his greasy bed hair and his colourless face, he at least looks rested. Less like a shell of Doyoung and more like a considerably miserable Doyoung. It’s still not great, but it’s an improvement. 

Doyoung nods. “Fever broke.” His voice is still hoarse. It looks like this cold is going to linger for some time. “This stew is delicious.”

“Oh,” Taeyong says, smiling. “I’m glad.”

“Hi, by the way,” Johnny says, and Taeyong spins around in his seat to blink at him with wide eyes. 

“Oh god, sorry! I didn’t mean to just ignore you-”

“It’s fine,” Johnny says with a smile that’s all too pleased, too knowing. “I should get going anyway. Yuta and I were gonna go catch that new horror movie.”

Taeyong is about to thank Johnny and bid his goodbyes, but he halts in his tracks. “Yuta?”

“Yes?”

“My Yuta?”

Johnny snorts, getting up from his seat. “If he knew you were calling him that…”

“What?” Taeyong’s brain can't process it. It’s unfathomable. Yuta? Hanging out with Johnny? Without Taeyong?

“Well, we figured we’re bound to be friends,” Johnny says, “considering our best friends are soulmates and all.”

“I hate that you said that right now,” Doyoung cuts in. 

Taeyong’s still trying to process that Yuta has friends besides him. And that Taeyong didn’t  _ know about it.  _ “I’m lost.”

Johnny shakes his head, smiling all the same. “Both Yuta and Doyoung were right,” he says as he zips his coat up. “You’re adorably oblivious.”

Taeyong spins back around on the couch, not even caring that Doyoung is sick and defenceless as he pounces on him. “YOU SAID WHAT ABOUT ME?”

Doyoung struggles to get the bowl on the coffee table before he grabs Taeyong’s wrists in attempts to keep him off of him. “I said  _ nothing  _ of the sort!”

“I’m leaving!” The door is open and shut. 

“He’s paraphrasing!” Doyoung continues to fight back, his voice cracking around every syllable. 

Taeyong is laughing too hard to properly wrestle, but he still refuses to let Doyoung think he’s stronger than him. “You’re a menace, Doyoung Kim.”

“That’s wh-” Doyoung begins to say, but ends up crumbling into a fit of coughs, violent and wet, rattling in his chest. Taeyong immediately feels bad for attacking a sick man. 

In consolation, he just kindly pats Doyoung’s back as he doubles over and coughs his lungs out. He even gives him a quiet, “There, there.”

When Doyoung settles down, tears in his eyes from exertion and wheezing at the pain, Taeyong gets up to make him some green tea, making sure to put loads of honey in it to help soothe the burn in his throat. With steaming mugs in hand they both settle comfortably into the couch, closer than they need to be. Doyoung shuffles through Netflix while Taeyong bitches about his meeting, and it’s comfortable. Too comfortable. 

Eventually, they settle on some psycho thriller they’ve both seen and didn’t even like, and Taeyong tosses the throw blanket over them and burrows in even closer. Doyoung doesn’t complain, and Taeyong figures he may as well take any opportunity he can to be close to him like this. Perhaps he’s a bit of a masochist. 

The movie is nearly over and Taeyong has done a whole lot of thinking when he bumps his shoulder against Doyoung’s and says, “You should go home for Christmas.”

“What?” Doyoung says. It comes out as a whisper. 

“Go home and see your family,” Taeyong says. “The semester will be over and you’ll have nothing keeping you here.”

Doyoung’s gaze fills up, swims with something that Taeyong can’t put his finger on. He just stares at Taeyong’s face, frowning, contemplating. “You’re probably right.”

“I often am,” Taeyong says, a weak attempt at bugging Doyoung. He averts his gaze to his hands in his lap, too embarrassed to look at the way Doyoung studies him any longer. “You just don’t like to admit that.”

Doyoung snorts, getting comfortable in his seat again, still pressed too close to Taeyong. Neither of them say anything about their proximity, despite the fact that they’re both very clearly and obviously aware of it. “But what will you do while I’m gone?”

“Sit here and wait for you, of course,” he chides. “No, I’m going to spend Christmas at my sister’s.”

Doyoung nods, still frowning. He does that an awful lot. Taeyong’s amazed his face isn’t permanently twisted into a frown. Then, Doyoung wiggles until he can pull his phone out from between the couch cushions, and leans in even closer against Taeyong. 

“Help me book my flights.”

Taeyong, for some reason, gets a little bit emotional helping Doyoung book his flights. He has to try  _ especially  _ hard not to tear up when Doyoung calls his mom to let her know, and he can hear the excited squeals of his mother through the phone. When Doyoung asks to speak to his dad, Taeyong hears his mother explain that he’s sleeping, not feeling well, and Taeyong reaches beneath the blanket until he’s squeezing Doyoung’s hand in both of his.

When he hangs up, Doyoung looks equal parts sad and relieved. “Thank you,” he says, softly. 

“No need to thank me,” Taeyong says, feeling oddly shy. 

“Still,” Doyoung replies. Then, quickly, “Wanna binge One Punch Man?”

“Always.”

And just like that, they resign to an evening of binge-watching anime, ordering takeout, and cuddling sweetly beneath the warm fuzzy blanket. Neither of them will ever admit to the latter. 

\-----

As the flu fades away and the semester treads on, slowly but surely, Doyoung begins  _ thriving.  _ One of his students he tutors is suddenly getting exemplary grades, and no longer requires his assistance, which lightens his workload considerably. He’s rested, healthy, happy with the anticipation of going home on Christmas break. Taeyong has never seen Doyoung with cheeks so full of colour and such a bounce in his step. 

All the times he’d tried to convince Taeyong that he’s plenty capable of making food for himself proves to be true. More often than not, Taeyong walks into Doyoung’s apartment in the evening with a dish of freshly made food, just to find Doyoung already in the kitchen, stirring a pot of something delicious. Taeyong’s honestly a little jealous of his skills in the kitchen, but hell will freeze over before he admits it to the boy. 

As Doyoung’s sleep schedule returns to something close to normal, eventually, so does Taeyong’s. That’s the weirdest of it all. 

It was hard, at first, when Doyoung started to crash earlier and earlier, as the days went by, dragging Taeyong to bed with him for reasons neither of them are willing to discuss. And Taeyong would just lay there, not tired yet, as he had spent the day sleeping, and listen to Doyoung’s breathing and wait until enough time had gone by before he could sneak out of bed and lock Doyoung’s door behind him. 

Until, one day, Taeyong fell asleep, too, and woke up to the sound of Doyoung’s alarm to find himself with an arm across Doyoung’s belly and his nose pressed to the hollow spot below Doyoung’s ear. 

Neither of them said a word to each other as Taeyong gathered his things and went home. 

Except, now, it’s nightly. Taeyong does all his work during the day and then goes over to Doyoung’s to sleep. He  _ likes  _ sleeping in Doyoung’s bed, because it’s a queen and more suited to fit two people (even  _ if  _ they spend the nights tangled up beyond ability to distinguish one from the other).

Yuta  _ loves  _ this new development, now that Taeyong has free time in the afternoons.  _ Normal people hours,  _ as Yuta calls them. And Taeyong can admit that it is nice, being awake at the same time as the rest of the world, seeing things in broad daylight, not rushing to run his errands before everything closes, actually having a social life outside of Doyoung. 

And now, as he and Yuta sit at that bakery they love on 52nd, splitting a cheesecake and sipping on coffees at a whopping 4:00 in the afternoon. Yuta chats Taeyong’s ear off about his work, about the teenagers he teaches, the ones with bad attitudes and the ones too competitive for their own good. Taeyong listens happily, munching away on the cake that he’s made the bigger dent in. It’s nice, to be on the same energy level as Yuta, while before he had always been ready to go while Yuta was crashing and vice versa. 

“But anyway,” Yuta says with a sigh, glancing sadly at the nearly-gone cheesecake. “How are things with your boo?”

“He’s  _ not  _ my boo,” Taeyong says. “Also, no one says boo anymore.”

Yuta rolls his eyes. “Whatever. He confess his undying love for you yet?”

“He’s not in love with me,” Taeyong murmurs, grumpily shoving another forkful of cake in his mouth. He contemplates making Yuta buy him another cake. Chocolate, this time. “Why would he be in love with me?”

“Your modesty is cute and all,” Yuta says, sinking back into his chair with his coffee mug to his lips, “but you seriously need a reality check if you don’t think you’re at all desirable.”

Taeyong fake gags, hand to his chest, heaving over his lap. “Yuta! I didn’t know you felt that way!”

Yuta slaps Taeyong on the back. “Shut up, I wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole!” he shouts loud enough that the barista behind the counter shoots them an amused glance. “But I’m not Doyoung.”

“There is no viable reason for Doyoung to have feelings for me.”

“Hmm, let’s see,” Yuta begins counting on his fingers, “You’re objectively good-looking, you can keep a house neat, you’re nice, you’re occasionally funny, and-”

“I get it. Stop talking before I really throw up.”

Yuta rolls his eyes. “It was as painful for me as it was for you. I’m just trying to get through that thick skull of yours.”

“My skull is a normal thickness.”

“Your insecurities aren’t.”

_ Ouch,  _ Taeyong thinks.  _ That one stung.  _

Yuta must read Taeyong’s expression, because he softens. “Yong, you know I love you and I want what’s best for you.” Taeyong just shrugs, sulking in his seat. Yuta continues, “And you always do this thing where you convince yourself you know what others think of you. And for some reason it’s never all that positive. If Doyoung didn’t think you’re great, he wouldn’t be spending all this time with you, yeah?”

Taeyong shrugs again. 

“At least  _ consider  _ the fact that maybe you’re good enough for Doyoung?”

“What if-”

“Taeyong, you can’t control everything in your life, especially how other people perceive you. Sometimes, you just have to let things happen to you.”

Silence hangs in the air. Taeyong thinks Yuta is talking complete nonsense, but he wants this conversation to end. He lets out a long sigh. 

“Buy me a slice of chocolate cake and I’ll consider it.”

Yuta’s grin is wide and goofy. Taeyong thinks it’s kinda cute, the way his friend’s face lights up.

“Coming right up.”

Taeyong’s phone buzzes in his pocket as Yuta stands up to head to the counter. He fishes into his pocket for it, and a smile instantly grows on his face when he sees that it’s a text from Doyoung. He quickly opens up the message. 

_ This is the third time in less than 2wks that I’ve had to wash my sheets. This is what I get for letting you eat cookies in my bed. _

Taeyong snorts out a giggle, and quickly taps out his reply. 

_ i’ll have to eat double the amount just to spite you from now on ;) _

Doyoung’s reply is instant. 

_ Your invitation to my bed has been revoked. _

Taeyong barely has time to type out,  _ NOOOOO BUT THE MEMORY FOAM :(((((  _ and hit send before Yuta is returning with a fresh plate of chocolate cake in hand, blabbering on about the hot new barista. At least he doesn’t comment on Taeyong’s heinously smitten expression. 

It isn’t until later, when Taeyong and Yuta part ways and he’s on his way home that he checks his phone and sees two unread texts from Doyoung. 

_ You’re lucky you make one hell of a potato leek soup, or I wouldn’t even consider allowing you near my bed ever again.  _

_ Also, my friends and I are going out Sat night to celebrate another semester under our belts. Come with me? You can bring Yuta too, Johnny won’t shut up about him.  _

Taeyong nearly flies away with the butterflies in his belly at Doyoung’s message.  _ Come with me.  _ Did Doyoung really have to word it that way? He couldn’t take into consideration Taeyong’s weak little gay heart? He tries to tamp down his smile into a relatively normal expression for a person to have before he types out a quick reply. 

_ count me in!!!!! _

\-----

Taeyong is a terrible drinker. He is very well aware of such a fact. And so is everyone else at this table, because he warned them all, Doyoung and Johnny and their friends: Taeil, Yeri, Joy, Mark, and Lucas. He warned them  _ all  _ that he does not handle alcohol well. 

That did not stop any of them from forcing shot after shot down his throat. Yuta even  _ encourages them,  _ like the lousy best friend he is. 

So now, Taeyong sits dopily, happily, nursing a holy water - because it’s mostly sugar and tastes nothing like alcohol (and it makes his tongue blue and he thinks that’s fun) - and plays footsies with Doyoung across the table from him. Doyoung has also had his fair share, flushed in the cheeks and mirth in his eyes. Taeyong thinks a million terrible thoughts at once, and then immediately shuts himself up in case anyone at the table can secretly read minds. He does  _ not  _ need anyone to know the thoughts he is thinking about Doyoung’s dangerously low collar. 

Without thinking, however, Taeyong says, “Did no one tell you to button up before you left?”

He’s glad that everyone is enraptured with some story Johnny is telling, glad that he and Doyoung each have the end seats in the booth so no one can pay attention to their locked eye contact. Taeyong is feeling  _ brave.  _ He decides he really loves tequila - despite the faces he made trying to swallow it down. 

Doyoung’s grin is equal parts sloppy and smug. “Johnny actually  _ unbuttoned _ my shirt before we left.”

“Remind me to thank him,” comes out of Taeyong’s mouth before he could think. Alarm bells are going off in his head, and he takes a sip of his drink to drown them out. 

Doyoung squints at him. Everyone else bursts out laughing at something someone said. He hears someone shout something about another round. 

“Are you trying to sweet talk me?” Doyoung says. Then, “You should know with a face like yours, there’s no need to try.”

The alcohol in his veins gives Taeyong the balls to reply, “Ah, but when talking to a face like yours, one  _ has  _ to try.”

Doyoung just squints at him a little while longer. Long enough for Taeyong’s words to catch up to him. He’s suddenly extremely aware of Doyoung’s foot rubbing up and down his calf, and from the corner of his eye he can see Yuta looking at them from where he’s firmly planted at Johnny’s side. 

“I wanna dance,” he blurts, because dancing means crowds and loud music and  _ no talking.  _ He stands up, grabbing Doyoung by the elbow. 

“I can’t dance very good,” Doyoung says as he stumbles behind Taeyong. 

“Who cares?” Taeyong shouts over the music, once he finds a spot in the middle of the crowd, out of eyesight from their group of friends. “Just stand there and look pretty.”

“That’s your job.”

Taeyong’s heart and stomach and brain are doing a billion things at once. He isn’t sure what has gotten into either of them. (He knows exactly what it is, and it starts with an A and ends with an -lcohol). They’re both saying things that neither of them would even dream of saying, without the aid of booze in their veins, and it’s genuinely starting to freak Taeyong out. 

Regardless, Taeyong starts swinging with the music, standing a respectable distance away from Doyoung, because no amount of booze can make him  _ that  _ stupid. Instead, he just closes his eyes and tosses his head back and bops to the music, because this DJ is actually good, and Taeyong just really loves to dance. He hopes Doyoung is dancing too and not just standing there awkwardly. He doesn’t dare risk a glance at him. 

He isn’t sure how much time passes, his senses flooded and drowned out by alcohol and thumping bass lines and warm bodies all around him. He isn’t sure how much time passes before a hand settles firmly on his hip, startling his eyes open. 

He’s met with Doyoung, who’s swaying along to the music better than he led Taeyong to believe he would. He thinks Doyoung shouts something about not wanting to lose him in the crowd, but Taeyong is too drunk and distracted by the colourful lights bouncing off Doyoung’s skin, and bravely wraps his arms around Doyoung’s neck, holding him close. If Doyoung doesn’t want to lose him,  _ fine.  _ Taeyong will ensure they don’t get more than a few inches apart. 

Even with all the liquid courage in the world, he’s too shy to look at Doyoung, instead ducking his head down to rest his forehead on Doyoung’s shoulder. He tries not to melt in his shoes at the feeling of Doyoung’s second hand coming up to rest on his other hip, effectively trapping him in his hot hands. 

All Taeyong smells is lavender and fabric softener, and he’s afraid that could get him more drunk than anything. 

Not on his watch. “Drinks!” he says, pulling back from Doyoung’s hold. Doyoung blinks dazedly at him, and Taeyong just grabs him by the hand and drags him through the crowd toward the bar. 

He and Doyoung are fighting for elbow room at the bar when he feels a hand at the small of his back. He turns to look over his shoulder, expecting to see Yuta or someone else he’s here with, but instead he locks eyes with a stranger. 

“Hey, gorgeous,” the stranger says. He’s tall and he’s handsome but Taeyong’s doesn’t  _ know  _ him and it makes him nervous. “I couldn’t help but come say hi, once I laid eyes on you.”

“Uhh,” Taeyong says, before busting out into nervous laughter. Can the bartender hurry up and  _ come take their order? _

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asks. Taeyong still can’t think of words. 

“It’s alright, I’m getting his drinks,” Doyoung says, loudly, confidently. Taeyong whips around to look at him with wide, dumbstruck eyes. Doyoung shoots him a  _ look  _ before turning back to the guy who still hasn’t let go of Taeyong’s back. “I’m his  _ boyfriend.” _

Taeyong physically feels his soul leave his body. Really. He’s floating somewhere between the bar and the flashing lights up above, watching his empty shell of a person just stand there, dumbstruck. 

“Ah, that’s too bad,” the guy says, finally dropping his hand from Taeyong’s lower back. “Worth the shot right?” 

He doesn’t process Doyoung’s response. He doesn’t even process that the bartender has come up to them and Doyoung orders for them both. 

“Sorry about that,” Doyoung says right in Taeyong’s ear, snapping him back to reality. “I didn’t know how else to get that guy away.”

“No, it’s- thanks,” Taeyong says. “I totally blanked, there.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Doyoung says, trading his money for drinks from the bartender. He hands Taeyong another holy water. “You’re too nice to turn people down, I get it.”

“My niceness is a vice and a virtue.”

Doyoung snorts as they turn to make their way back to the table. “Sure, you could call it that.”

Taeyong flushes. “I never know what to do when people hit on me.”

“That’s unsurprising.”

“Not that it happens all that often-”

“Now  _ that  _ I find surprising.”

Taeyong flushes again. Doyoung is being so  _ bold _ tonight. Just drowning Taeyong in these little hints of flattery, off-handed compliments that make Taeyong burn from within. He doesn’t know how to handle it, and the alcohol fuzzing his senses and inhibitions does not at all help the twisting in his belly. 

They settle back into the booth, next to each other this time, to find half the group had gone out to dance. The few that remain - Lucas, Johnny, and Joy - are all rowdy and demanding another round of shots for the table, and then another, and Taeyong drinks himself silly. 

And it’s fun. He’s having  _ fun.  _ He’s sloppy and giggling into Doyoung’s neck as the two of them curl too closely together, but everyone is too drunk to notice or care. They flirt, the two of them, more backhanded compliments and bold statements, hands on each other’s thighs and giggles shared over things that aren’t funny at all. 

Their friends are noisy, and they join in making all that noise, until it’s late and Taeyong is dizzy and he and Doyoung are stumbling out of the club and hailing a cab. 

No one is going to give them funny looks for this. They live in the same building, after all. 

Doyoung decides waiting until the seventh floor is too long, so he gets off with Taeyong on the sixth. Taeyong fumbles with his key for a bit before they’re finally inside his apartment, shivering to the bone from being outside. They shed their jackets, too drunk to hang them up, and Taeyong hops over to the thermostat and blasts it as high as he can go without jacking his bill up too high. 

“Bed,” Taeyong says, unable to conjure up any other words. Doyoung sleepily nods, following Taeyong down the hall to the bedroom. 

Taeyong’s body sings as he gets out of his tight, uncomfortable bar clothes, grateful to be rid of the smell of sweaty bodies and cigarette smoke. Doyoung seems just as pleased too, groaning when he kicks out of his skinny jeans. 

“‘M so tired,” Doyoung mumbles, now in just his underwear, sliding into Taeyong’s bed. 

Taeyong blinks violently to get the image of  _ all of Doyoung’s skin  _ out of his head. “Same.”

He flicks off the light, padding over to the bed, weirdly self-conscious of the fact that, much like Doyoung, he’s just in his underwear, as well. Regardless, he slides under the covers, and is instantly met with Doyoung’s fingers reaching out to pull at his waist. They’re cold, from outside, and they make Taeyong jump, but just as quickly he melts into the embrace, letting Doyoung use a firm grip on the dip of his waist to pull him flush against him. 

“You’re shivering,” Doyoung mumbles, nose-to-nose with Taeyong. 

“S’cold.”

Doyoung nods, his forehead rubbing against Taeyong’s. They both stink like alcohol, but neither of them care. Instead, Taeyong is content to just lay there, hands tucked between his chest and Doyoung’s - content to just feel the way Doyoung grazes his fingers along Taeyong’s waist, up over his ribcage and down to the knob of his hip. His fingertips, though cold, sear into his skin regardless of how gentle his touch is, slightly reverent and very much tender. 

They’re both drunk, the room spinning around them. Close and warm against each other. Inches,  _ barely,  _ away.

Taeyong can’t help himself anymore. “Doyoung?”

“Hmm?”

Through the moonlight coming in through the window, Taeyong can make out the high points of Doyoung’s face, can see his eyelashes fluttering against his cheek as he lays there with his eyes closed. Gorgeous. “If I were to do something kinda stupid but really brave, would you let me?”

Doyoung’s eyes open, and even in the dim silver light, Taeyong can see how he laser focusses on Taeyong’s face, nose, mouth. 

“If you’re gonna do what I think you’re gonna do,” Doyoung whispers, nervous but sure, “then please,  _ please  _ do it.”

“Okay,” Taeyong says, nodding. He zeroes in on Doyoung’s mouth. “Okay.”

He leans in, and Doyoung meets him halfway. Their mouths, hot, wet, eager, mesh together and their chests press impossibly close. He feels like his ribs might crack open, just to fit Doyoung in tighter against him, as they kiss each other senseless. 

They’re both drunk and dizzy with alcohol. Drunk and dizzy with lust and want and  _ need  _ and now that Taeyong has tasted Doyoung he doesn’t know what else to do with himself besides just that. All he wants to do forever is  _ taste  _ him. His lips, his teeth, his skin. He even tastes the pleased little sounds that spill from Doyoung’s mouth into his and he responds with sweet sounds of his own. 

If Taeyong is sweet then Doyoung is savoury, enough that Taeyong wants to pick him apart and make this last until he tastes him for hours after he’s had his fill. Slotting a thigh between Doyoung’s legs, he kisses harder,  _ deeper,  _ months of yearning pouring out from his lips in kisses and sighs and sounds. 

Doyoung’s grip on Taeyong’s waist is so tight it might bruise, and Taeyong prays to however many gods the world has ever thought up that it does. 

“Taeyong,” Doyoung moans, wanton. It sends a chill down Taeyong’s spine, and he presses in even closer, wriggles against Doyoung messily and desperately. “W- we’re drunk.”

He halts, because Doyoung is right. They’re drunk, and if this is to go any further, he doesn’t want it like this. They need to talk first, sober and of sound mind, less fuzzy and stupid and without inhibition. 

One more peck on Doyoung’s lips and he draws back. He meets Doyoung’s gaze in the soft moonlight, and can’t help the amused smile when he sees Doyoung’s frown. He lifts a hand between them, smooths his thumb between Doyoung’s brows. 

He is so thankful the alcohol has made him sleepy and drowsy. Otherwise, he’d be too preoccupied with the violent beating of his erratic heart. 

“Thanks,” Taeyong whispers. “That was nice.”

Doyoung snorts, his frown melting away into a smile. Taeyong thinks he may even see his cheeks tinge pink. “It was.”

“I’m tired,” Taeyong says. He rolls over, back to Doyoung’s chest. “Spoon me.”

“You’re a bossy drunk,” Doyoung says, but he slings an arm around Taeyong’s torso, regardless, and squeezes him tight against his chest. 

“Mmm,” Taeyong says, “and a cuddly drunk.”

He doesn’t even hear what Doyoung murmurs in his ear, already asleep in the blink of an eye. 


	3. Chapter 3

Doyoung wakes to the smell of sticky skin and stale alcohol. He squints his eyes shut tighter, scrunching up his nose, offended by the smell that’s probably mostly coming from him. Beneath it, though, is the smell of powdered sugar and rose water, and immediately Doyoung’s heart begins  _ tha-thumping  _ in his chest. 

He realizes, belatedly, that he has Taeyong tangled up in him, breath warm where his mouth is agape and pressed to Doyoung’s adam’s apple. It’s no different from any other morning from the past couple weeks. He’s used to waking up wound up with Taeyong’s limbs, warm and soft and perfect. 

Except this time they’re mostly naked. Oh, and they totally kissed last night. 

_ Fuck. _

The arm tossed over Taeyong’s waist absently snakes tighter around him, and Doyoung’s skin breaks out into goosebumps when Taeyong sleepily hums into the skin of his neck. He stills, frozen, but Taeyong just continues to snooze, and Doyoung releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. 

They need to have a conversation. They need to talk about what happened last night. Because last night, Doyoung got everything he could have ever dreamed of, Taeyong’s mouth against his and their hands hungrily grasping at each other’s flesh in search of  _ more.  _ It’s all that Doyoung has wanted, practically since Taeyong appeared at his front door with a plateful of cookies, and yet he got it when they were drunk and sloppy and not thinking straight. 

He stares at the tuft of hair in his face, blue long since faded into a pale silver, and thinks about how differently he wishes it had been. He wishes Taeyong would have kissed him when he was sober, lucid and fully aware. If he had  _ actually  _ wanted to do it, instead of just whatever his booze-initiated bad ideas told him. 

Because that's all it was. Taeyong was drunk and out of his mind. He’s an affectionate drunk, a boy filled to the brim with too much love for him to even possibly give, and it spills out of him when his inhibitions have been lowered. Doyoung may fucking  _ love  _ Taeyong’s big fat heart - but Taeyong’s big fat heart was in the wrong place last night, with all that tequila and whatever the hell is in a holy water clouding his judgement. 

It breaks his heart. He wishes Taeyong had kissed him in any other situation besides whatever last night was. 

Taeyong rolls in even closer, the thigh between Doyoung’s legs curling up even further, humming sweetly again against the sensitive skin of Doyoung’s neck. Doyoung’s toes curl in the sheets and his stomach does backflips. 

They need to acknowledge it, and Doyoung can get over himself and tell Taeyong just how much he’s been obsessed with him since day one. He just needs to grow a pair and tell Taeyong he straight up thinks the sun shines out of his ass. 

Perhaps a bit more eloquently put than that, however. 

Taeyong stirs, breathing in deep, and Doyoung hopes he doesn’t smell as bad as he thinks he does. Still, Taeyong squeezes his arms around Doyoung’s waist tighter before loosening his hold, pulling back. His face, puffy with sleep and smudged with last night’s eyeliner, is the most ethereal thing Doyoung has ever seen. 

It’s like now that Doyoung knows what Taeyong’s kisses feel like, saccharine and viscous and  _ perfect,  _ the world has started shining an even brighter light on Taeyong’s perfect skin. Like the birds chirp even louder when Taeyong is sparing him a glance, and the heavens open up to sing in choirs loudly in Doyoung’s ears. Doyoung’s life is so hard, sometimes. 

“Holy shit,” Taeyong grumbles. “We’re a mess.”

“I- wh-” Doyoung’s brain is short circuiting. “Speak for yourself.”

Taeyong snorts out a laugh. “Asshole,” he says, but his words carry no malice. “You can use my shower, if you want. I need Advil and seven glasses of water before I can function.”

He pulls out of Doyoung’s hold, and Doyoung resists the urge to reach out and pull Taeyong back against him. Instead, he just stares at Taeyong’s back, slender but strong, wiry, as he sits on the edge of the bed. 

Doyoung knows he should tell Taeyong how he feels. And Doyoung is a lot of things - he’s stubborn and he’s competitive and he’s clever and he’s proud. But he’s certainly not brave. 

“Hey,” Taeyong’s says softly, looking over his shoulder and suddenly sounding very serious. Doyoung’s heart leaps up into his throat. “About last night-”

“Ughh,” Doyoung interrupts, dragging a hand down his face. “Yeah, speaking of, how the hell did we even get home?”

He has no idea what he’s saying at this point. All he knows is he’s a goddamn  _ coward.  _ He also knows he can’t stand to look at the confused furrow in Taeyong’s brow, so he quickly turns to stare at the pillowcase next to his face. 

“I don’t remember anything past that last round of shots,” Doyoung lies through his teeth. “Something about Mark spilling Joy’s drink into her lap?”

He chances a glance at Taeyong. He’s turned back around, and his shoulders have deflated, his head hanging low. From this angle, Doyoung can just barely make out Taeyong’s profile, can see him staring sadly at the floor. 

“Right,” Taeyong says, and Doyoung gets the sneaking suspicion that Taeyong is onto him. But Doyoung will be damned if Taeyong isn’t the most patient, understanding person ever, and would never  _ ever  _ pry more out of Doyoung than he’s willing to share. “Last night was wild.”

Doyoung is so goddamn stupid. 

Taeyong turns around, smiling sweetly at Doyoung. “Let me get you a towel before I die right here.”

Doyoung groans, collapsing his face into the pillows. “Dying right here sounds pretty nice, actually.” He hears Taeyong snicker, and thinks that weird moment of tension has passed. 

“C’mon,” Taeyong says, smacking a hand in the center of Doyoung’s back. “You stink.”

“ _ You  _ stink,” Doyoung argues weakly, even though he’s already getting up and out of bed. Taeyong just grins at him, already in a pair of sweats, so unfairly beautiful for being hungover and dirty and having just woken up. He looks  _ aggressively  _ kissable. 

Doyoung is so thoroughly fucked. 

\-----

It’s a little after 1:00pm that they both start to feel a little more human, a little less like useless lumps of alcohol fumes. They sit in comfortable silence as they chew on eggs and bacon, an ungodly hour to be eating breakfast, but it’s not like either of them can say much about reasonable sleeping habits or otherwise. 

“You know what we should do,” Taeyong kicks Doyoung lightly from where he sits next to him at the kitchen island. He’s giving Doyoung that look where he draws his eyebrows back like a shy kitten draws back its ears and Doyoung has to shove an extra large bite of eggs in his mouth to stop himself from saying something stupid. “We should go to that outdoor market a few blocks over.”

Doyoung frowns. “Tyong, it’s, like, twenty-three degrees.”

“So? We’ll bundle up,” Taeyong says. Then, he pouts, his bottom lip jutting forward. Doyoung physically clenches a fist at his side. “You leave in  _ two days,  _ Doie! Let’s do something somewhat Christmassy, you and me.”

Doyoung may love to argue, but the truth is, he’s already submitted himself to going the second Taeyong thought it up. He doesn’t even need to ask. Doyoung will do just about anything he wants, save for maybe jumping off a cliff. 

Actually, no, he would positively jump off a cliff. That way he could give Taeyong whatever he so pleases  _ and  _ plummet to his demise. A perfect scenario. 

“Let me go up to my place and change,” Doyoung says, looking down at the pair of sweats he’s borrowed from Taeyong. They’re comfy, but short at his ankles. “Meet me up there in ten?”

Taeyong beams, sliding out of his seat to grab his and Doyoung’s dishes, taking them to the sink. “Hurry!”

So, Doyoung does. 

He takes the stairs up to his floor two at a time, his bar clothes from last night bunched up in his arms. He wastes no time, sliding on his favourite pair of blue jeans, a soft, warm sweater. It’s navy. Taeyong’s told him on a few occasions that he looks nice in navy blue. A belt, warm socks. Luckily, his hair dried down nicely, so he spends little time just tossing his bangs about his forehead until they look exactly the way he wants.

Doyoung may be trying a little  _ too  _ hard, here. Harder than he’s ever tried around Taeyong, with whom he’s usually so comfortable and casual with. It’s just- maybe if he looks nice enough, Taeyong will want to kiss him again.

Maybe.

At that, he hears his front door open, and he scrambles out of his bedroom to find Taeyong closing the door behind him. He’s in his stylish, long, black peacoat, which looks nice on him, sure, but it can’t be warm enough to hold him over for a couple hours.

“You’ll freeze in that jacket,” he says, digging into his entrance closet for his own coat.

Taeyong beams over his maroon scarf, his matching beanie perched on his head, too. “I’m wearing four sweaters.”

Doyoung notices Taeyong’s mittens are also maroon. A whole matching set. “Anything for the aesthetic, right?”

“Precisely.”

Doyoung slips on his own coat, much puffier, a charcoal gray. He zips it up as he steps into his boots and then smiles brightly at Taeyong.

“Ready to go?”

Taeyong frowns. “No hat, no scarf?”

“I’ll be fine-”

“No you won’t,” Taeyong says, stalking over to the entrance closet and opening the little plastic drawers that Doyoung keeps his hats and miscellaneous things in. He digs through, pulls out a navy blue scarf and a black hat. He resolutely pulls the hat down over Doyoung’s ears - on a good hair day, at that. “You don’t have any mittens besides those big ugly ones for skiing?”

“Nope,” Doyoung says, letting Taeyong wrap the scarf around his neck. He’s close, and all Doyoung can smell is the mix of powdered sugar and rosewater that Taeyong always so sweetly smells like, and he’s getting a little dizzy with it. “But I don’t naturally run ten degrees colder than everyone like you do.”

Taeyong rolls his eyes, pulling the scarf so tight over Doyoung’s mouth he can’t talk. With a laugh, Taeyong steps back and announces they’re leaving, and Doyoung has to stumble over himself to loosen the scarf and scramble after Taeyong down the hall.

The walk to the market is quick. It’s only a few blocks away and halfway there, they could already hear the chiming of Christmas carols over sound systems and the smell of fresh baked goodies and food. Taeyong looks excited, skipping along next to him, his cheeks and nose flushed pink with both elation and the wind. It’s chilly, but the sun is high and bright in the sky, and the pale light of winter makes Taeyong’s eyes sparkle.

All the Christmas lights around them don’t help either.

They near the stands and shops and Taeyong eagerly starts yanking at Doyoung’s elbow. “Let’s get gelato!”

“Pffsh- Tae-” Doyoung stops to laugh incredulously. “It’s cold out!”

“So? It’s gelato!”

“No.”

_ “Please!” _

“No!” Doyoung says, shaking his head exasperatedly. “We should get something warm to…” he trails off, distracted by a jewelry stand they walk by. He already bought his mom a gift, but she does love hand-crafted trinkets like that.

“Hot cocoa!” Taeyong says, yanking Doyoung away properly, this time. They arrive at a stand, a woman standing at the counter talking to customers, and two others behind her stirring giant steaming pots of something that smells  _ oh  _ so sweet. “They have so many kinds!” Taeyong says excitedly.

Doyoung frowns, and finds a chalkboard sign with all their different options. His eyes widen. “Christ, what’s wrong with just regular ol’ hot chocolate?”

“I’m torn between caramel white chocolate and cherry chocolate,” Taeyong pouts. Doyoung looks down at him, only to find him frowning like someone’s asked him if he would prefer death by poison or hanging. 

“I’m sure if you get cherry chocolate you’ll get a little cherry on top.”

Taeyong lights up. “Sold.”

The people in front of them depart, and they step up to the counter. The lady greets them with a rosy smile.

“I’ll have the cherry chocolate!” Taeyong says excitedly.

“Just a regular hot chocolate, for me, please.”

The lady nods as she scribbles onto their paper cups. “Marshmallows?”

“Of course,” Taeyong answers for him.

“Great,” she says, passing the cups back to the ladies stirring the pots. “They’ll be three dollars, each. We only take cash.”

Taeyong’s expression drops and he looks up at Doyoung with wide eyes. “I don’t have any cash on me!”

“That’s fine,” Doyoung says, digging his wallet out of his pocket. “I’ll get it.”

“I’ll make it up to you later!”

“It’s  _ fine,  _ Tyongie,” Doyoung says with a chuckle, handing the cash over the counter. “Really.”

Taeyong grips at Doyoung’s bicep, leaning into him with a pout. “I feel bad!”

“You really shouldn’t. Thank you,” he takes the two cups being handed to him. One has a heaping pile of marshmallows, the other topped with whipped cream and - of course - a cherry on top. “Here.”

Taeyong is too excited to feel bad anymore. He takes the drink from Doyoung as they step away from the counter, beaming the wattage of the sun shining so aggressively above them. Doyoung burns his tongue on his first sip of hot chocolate.

“Ah! Don’t drink, yet, it’s too hot.”

“Well,  _ duh,”  _ Taeyong quips back. He starts leading them towards the jewelry stand Doyoung had been looking at earlier. “I noticed you looking over here.”

“Yeah,” Doyoung says. He gets distracted by Taeyong plucking the cherry from the whipped cream and popping it between his lips. Those lips that Doyoung has kissed, and they were lovely,  _ very  _ lovely to kiss. Taeyong cocks an eyebrow at him. Doyoung clears his throat. “My mom has always liked stuff like this. Was thinking of maybe getting her some earrings.”

Taeyong hums, taking off a mitt and dipping his finger into the whipped cream just to bring it to his lips so he can lick it off. Doyoung might have an aneurysm on the spot. “Stay here, shop around,” Taeyong decides. “I’m gonna go find an ATM in case most places around here only take cash.”

“Okay,” Doyoung squeaks, honestly just grateful that Taeyong is leaving him be before he pops a boner in public or, worse, kisses his stupid face. Why did Taeyong have to go and be so… pretty? And desirable? And everything Doyoung could ever want but is far too afraid to take.

His life is truly so hard.

He shops around, wanders underneath the tent, smiles politely at the workers who shiver under their coats and puff clouds into the air with their breath. He looks at the bracelets and the necklaces, but decides he really does want to get her a pair of earrings, because that’s what his mom always likes to wear best. 

Doyoung’s just finished paying for a pretty pair of dangly earrings - made with beads of jade - when Taeyong wanders back up to him. His hot chocolate is half empty. Doyoung’s taken about three sips of his own.

“Hi,” Taeyong smiles, cheeks impossibly pink and eyes impossibly bright.

Doyoung smiles back. “Hi.” Then, he notices a gigantic brown paper bag at Taeyong’s side, the handle hanging in the crook of his elbow. “What’s that?”

“Nothing!” Taeyong says, quickly enough that Doyoung knows it’s certainly  _ not  _ nothing. Doyoung leans over, trying to peek inside. Taeyong twists his body so it’s out of Doyoung’s vision. “Don’t look!”

Doyoung squints. “Fine.”

They fall into step together. Doyoung frowns, turning to Taeyong. “We agreed we weren’t getting each other anything.”

He doesn’t mention that he’s had a gift for Taeyong wrapped and hidden in his closet for three weeks, now.

“Did we?” Taeyong plays coy. Then his eyes widen. “Oh my god, look at those cinnamon buns!” 

“No,” Doyoung says, resolute. “Real food before you have any more sweets.”

Taeyong looks affronted. “You’re not the boss of me!”

“You’re right,” Doyoung says, tossing his now-cold-chocolate in a bin and grabbing Taeyong by the sleeve. “I’m just bossy.”

He steers Taeyong into a little cafe, an actual indoor shop, conveniently located on the block the tents all went up on. It’s nestled cozily in between two vendors, playing jazzy Christmas songs and smelling of freshly baked bread. Doyoung takes his hat off and shakes his hair out, wrapped up in the warmth of being indoors. 

“Cute,” Taeyong says, quietly, absently. Doyoung agrees. It’s a quaint little place, with its exposed brick and local art hanging on the walls. 

“Coffee and a sandwich,” Doyoung says. “Then,  _ then,  _ you can have some sweets.”

“Whatever,  _ mom.” _

They order and Taeyong pays. He insists that it’s to pay Doyoung back for that whopping three-dollar hot chocolate. Doyoung doesn’t put up too much of a fight, scared that if they do that cliche no-I-want-to-pay banter in front of the barista they might get the suspicion that the two of them are on a date and Doyoung  _ cannot  _ have anyone thinking that. Not even after they’ve made their orders and have their glasses of water - they decided to skip coffee, as they’re still dehydrated and vaguely hungover - in hand as they go to sit at the little table in front of the cozy fireplace. Not even when Taeyong starts kicking at Doyoung’s ankles and chattering animatedly about the current manuscript he’s working through, which is apparently awesome and intriguing and drawing a lot of thought and contemplation out of him that he wishes he had the time to jot down, and Doyoung just watches him speak with a dumb smile on his face because  _ holy shit _ Taeyong is so cute when he’s excited about something and his eyes get all big and sparkly. 

Not even then. 

They eat their soups and their sandwiches with more amicable chatter. They warm up by the fire and fill their bellies and put their hats and scarves back on to go do some more shopping. 

Taeyong buys a literal armful of homemade soaps. He holds the pile of them in his arms, against his chest, this huge collection of soaps and bath bombs and exfoliators and lotions. Doyoung takes careful note of how many of them are either candy or rose scented. 

Doyoung doesn’t buy much else. He buys a big bag of sweets from a chocolatier, truffles and cookies and macaroons and whatever else could possibly be made out of chocolate. He can’t be bothered to care, he just takes careful note of everything Taeyong gawks at and immediately orders it. Then they wander around while Taeyong munches happily on his chocolates, enjoying the sights and the sounds. 

They pass a book trade that Taeyong lingers at, a tent full of homemade pet treats that Taeyong teases they should find something for bunnies for Doyoung to have, a tent with handcrafted towels, cloths, blankets, all beautiful and made from home harvested wool. Taeyong doesn’t linger there, instead whines about starting to get cold. Doyoung is inclined to agree. 

On the walk home, Doyoung’s fingers start going numb, having finally been in the cold for too long. He walks, shoulder to shoulder with Taeyong, and rubs his hands together and blows hot air into his fists. 

Without a single word, Taeyong takes off his own right mitten and reaches for Doyoung’s right hand, slipping it on with a determined frown. With his newly exposed hand, he latches onto Doyoung’s left, flesh warm where Doyoung’s is basically ice, and shoves their hands into Doyoung’s coat pocket, where, together, they’re remarkably warm. 

Doyoung can’t help but stare down at Taeyong, gauging any sort of reaction, expression from him. Instead, Taeyong stares resolutely down at the thin layer of snow on the ground beneath their feet, the flush in his cheeks  _ surely  _ from the cold air nipping at their skin the closer the sun gets to the horizon. Doyoung tries exceedingly hard to convince himself of that. 

There’s no discussion, yet somehow they both know they’re going up to the seventh floor together. In the elevator, indoors where it’s warm, Taeyong has still not let go of Doyoung’s hand. 

Doyoung doesn’t  _ dare  _ comment on it, afraid of scaring Taeyong away like a firefly he’s trying to catch in his jar. 

“What do you want for dinner?” Doyoung asks, hanging their jackets in the closet. “I could make something, or we could order in if you prefer-”

“Let’s just hang out for a bit.”

Doyoung nods, following Taeyong into the living room where they plop down on the couch. He glances at the ground, right next to where Taeyong is seated, where he has that big paper bag from earlier. He debates for a moment, before deciding now is as good a time as any, since they’ll be apart for Christmas, and gets up off the couch. 

“Wait here.”

Taeyong doesn’t say anything, just nods dumbly up at Doyoung with wide, curious eyes. 

He opens his bedroom closet, moves some clothes around until he finds the red glittery gift bag that’s been there for some time. He realizes, as he makes his way back down the hall, that he never got a card to go with it. Damn. 

Taeyong’s eyes are saucers when Doyoung seats himself back at the other end of the couch, grinning proudly as he hands the gift bag over to Taeyong. 

“You scolded me about buying presents!”

“So? I just love scolding you.”

Taeyong snorts, smiling down at the gift in his hands. “True.”

“I didn’t get you a card,” Doyoung says as Taeyong starts digging the tissue paper out. “I’m sorry.”

Taeyong frowns up at Doyoung. “Don’t be. It’s just a card.”

Doyoung shrugs. Taeyong digs his hand into the bag and gasps. 

“You-” he starts. He stares, eyes wide, at the leather bound journal in his hand. It’s a deep shade of brown, custom made and more than Doyoung should have spent on a goddamn notepad, but worth it all the same. Taeyong lifts a finger on his free hand, dragging it across the words, engraved in gold. 

_ For All Those Thoughts You Think _

“Doyoung, I-“

“There’s more.”

Taeyong blinks at him. Doyoung just nods his head for him to continue. 

“Ha!” Taeyong shouts excitedly when he peeks into the bottom of the bag. He pulls out the little box, full of strawberry truffles from that bakery he likes so much. He doesn’t hesitate to open it up and pop one in his mouth. 

He grins widely at Doyoung as he chews, eyes sparkling brighter than that giant Christmas tree they’d seen at the market, earlier. Doyoung can feel the air rush out of his lungs in a violent whoosh. 

Breathlessly, Taeyong says, “Thank you, Doyoung, I-” he dips his head down, staring at the journal. “This is so- I’ve been wanting to get back into writing my own stuff for so long, now.”

“I know,” Doyoung says. 

When Taeyong looks back up at him, his eyes are not only sparkly, but classy with slowly building tears. Doyoung lurches forward, reaching out to grab Taeyong’s wrist. 

“Don’t cry, it- it’s just a book!”

That just makes Taeyong sniffle, slapping his free hand over his eyes. “It’s not, though!” he lets out a sappy giggle, embarrassed. “This is so thoughtful, you know how much writing means to me, you- you got me my favourite candy!”

Doyoung can’t help but snort out a laugh, shaking his head incredulously. “You fucking sap,” he says. It makes Taeyong smile, dropping his hand and glaring back at Doyoung with pretend anger. “It’s nothing.”

Taeyong shakes his head before smiling back down at the journal in his hand. “Sorry, I just... I guess I’m feeling extra emotional today.”

“It’s fine,” Doyoung says, voice tiny. 

“This means the world to me, Doie,” Taeyong says, clutching the book to his chest and smiling softly at Doyoung. “Thank you. Now I feel like my gift is lame.”

Doyoung earnestly shakes his head. Taeyong, you  _ fool. _ “I’m grateful for anything from you.”

“Ah,” Taeyong whispers, turning to grab the paper bag. “Don’t say things like that to me.”

Doyoung doesn’t have a response to that. Instead, he just lets Taeyong drop the bag in his lap.

He reaches in, feels something unbelievably soft. He frowns, and Taeyong beams, and then he pulls the object free from the bag. 

It’s a thick, soft, probably extremely expensive blanket. Doyoung can’t stop running his hands over it, the fabric so soft and beautiful, and he hugs it to his chest, not unlike Taeyong did with his journal. 

“Taeyong,” he says. He can’t stop looking at it. It’s a pretty silvery shade of blue-green, much like the accent colours in the area rug in his living room. Taeyong, and his acute attention to detail. “You’re still so petty about me not having a throw blanket in my living room, you fucking buy me one for Christmas.”

Taeyong laughs, bright and beautiful, and leans over the couch to slap Doyoung square in the chest. It doesn’t hurt, since the folded up blanket was in the way. 

Taeyong smiles. “I guess now that you have this, I can give you back your hoodie.”

Doyoung shakes his head before his brain has a chance to catch up. “No,” he says. “That’s yours now.”

Taeyong gapes at him, clearly at a loss for words. Doyoung just can’t help but think about how tiny and soft Taeyong looks whenever he wears it - or the pleasant churn in his gut whenever he sees Taeyong wearing his sweater. 

“Consider it a bonus gift.”

“Fine,” Taeyong says, smiling bashfully as he curls up into himself. Doyoung thinks he might see a flush in his cheeks. “Merry Christmas, Doie.”

Doyoung feels warm from his chest down to his toes. “Merry Christmas, Yongie.

\-----

It takes too many hours of flying and even more hours of adjusting before Doyoung feels less like a zombie and more like Doyoung. He’s in the kitchen, with his mother, chopping vegetables up for their Christmas Eve dinner. She’s ecstatic, buzzing about the kitchen with a spring in her step and a cheery tune on her lips. 

“Doyoung, sweetheart, have you finished with the tomatoes?” She asks, over the sizzling of meat in her pan. 

“Here,” Doyoung says, bringing over the cutting board full of cubed tomatoes. He grabs a new cutting board and starts peeling the onions.

“Your brother should be arriving in the next hour or so,” she chimes, sounding happier than Doyoung has ever heard her before. Somewhere in the distance, Doyoung can hear the drone of the television from the living room, on some news channel, where his dad is asleep in his recliner. “You haven’t met his fiancée yet, have you?”

“No, ma’am,” he says, blinking away the burn in his eyes from the onions. 

“She’s sweet. A lovely girl,” his mother’s smile is dreamy. “You’ll like her.”

“I’m sure I will.”

His mother hums. She grabs the soy sauce from the fridge and pours some into her pan. It sizzles obnoxiously loudly. “Makes me wonder when you’ll bring someone home.”

Doyoung feels the heat rise to his cheeks. “It’s a much bigger commitment, bringing someone here from New York, rather than bringing someone from Busan.”

“I know, I know,” his mother drawls. “So what you’re saying is there is someone?”

“I… did not say that.”

“Doyoungie!” his mother whines. “I’m getting impatient here, I’ll die of old age before you bring home some nice girl-” then, as if as an afterthought, “-or guy.”

_ That  _ makes Doyoung’s heart pick up pace. He’s kind of glad that his family spent most of his teen years in the States, where they developed a much more open-minded attitude than Doyoung thinks they could have developed, otherwise. He knows they would never cause an issue about the fact that he occasionally likes to kiss boys. It’s not like he never noticed the playful smirks and knowing glances his parents would exchange whenever Doyoung and his “best friend” Sicheng would run off to Doyoung’s room when he was but a sophomore in high school. He knows his parents wouldn’t make a stink about it now, either. Still, his stomach flips around in circle, for a little bit, before he clicks his tongue.

“Well, I- I mean, I-”

His mother drops what she’s doing and spins around to face him. He, luckily, still has his back to her as he sniffles over the onions he’s chopping. “So, there is someone.”

“No, it’s-” he stops to sigh, his shoulders deflating. He gives up cutting onions, just putting his hands down on the counter and shrinking in defeat. “I like someone a whole lot, but… I don’t know if it’ll ever. You know.”

His mother hums, in that knowing, motherly way. “Are they a special one?” She asks, turning back to whatever she was doing before. Doyoung can’t lift the knife in his hand for the life of him. “This person of yours?”

“Yeah, he-” he pauses, realizing he forgot to use a gender neutral term. His mother says nothing. So, he continues, “he’s the best. I would probably have died from a combination of stress, fatigue, and malnourishment if it weren’t for him.”

“Ah,” his mother says, and he could hear the grin in her voice. “Glad to know someone’s there to care for you when I’m not around.”

That makes Doyoung smile. 

“What’s his name?”

“Taeyong.”

His mom makes a little noise. “He’s Korean!”

“Yeah,” Doyoung says. He starts cutting up the onions again. “But his family all lives in the States. His parents moved there just before he was born.”

Doyoung finishes the onions, so he turns to hand them over to his mother. What he sees is a mischievous little smirk on her lips. “He handsome?”

Doyoung snorts a laugh. “Eomma, you have no idea.”

They’re interrupted by the sound of car doors slamming shut. His mother perks up, glancing out her window to the driveway. She starts bouncing on her toes. “You’ll have to show me a picture later. Gongmyung’s here!”

Dinner is pleasant, festive and cheerful. His mom is so ecstatic to have the family back together, bouncing about like she’ll explode if she sits still. His father is tired, but forces himself to remain awake with his family with a grin on his face, the pride in his eyes obvious to Doyoung. Gongmyung’s fiancée is lovely, and dinner is delicious, and they laugh and chat around the table. Doyoung realizes, then, just how  _ much  _ he’s missed his family.

It’s hard, though, to see his father so frail. He’s thin and he’s wan, and Doyoung can see how much their lively conversation drains him. It breaks his heart to see him this way, the man who used to carry him on his shoulders and taught him how to pitch a baseball. The man who let Doyoung win in wrestling matches and would swing him upside down to make him laugh. Now hunched into himself in his seat, smaller and more fragile than he’s ever seen anyone before.

But his grin is broad and proud and powerful. 

He does get around to showing his mother a picture of Taeyong, after her third glass of wine, no less. It’s a picture of he and Taeyong, a selfie that Taeyong insisted they take while they were wandering through the market together. Taeyong’s cheeks and nose are rosy and his eyes sparkle almost as brightly as his smile, and the picture earns a slap on his chest and a,  _ “You can’t be serious, Kim Doyoung!”  _ from his mother. It’s all he could ever ask for.

And he falls asleep that night with a smile on his face and a warmth in his chest.

\-----

Doyoung misses Taeyong a startling amount. He wakes up Christmas morning, feeling awfully cold and alone in the guest bed, wishing he had Taeyong here tangled up around him, always warm to the touch despite how he’s always starved for warmth. It’s been too long since he’s woken up that way. Taeyong hasn’t slept in his bed since The Incident. 

Doyoung has been pretending it doesn’t bother him. 

His day is pleasant, though. He and his family have breakfast and exchange gifts and laugh a lot. He’s happy, here at home, surrounded so wholly by people who love him so fantastically. People who have missed him greatly.

He spends most of his day sitting in the living room with his dad, playing chess a hundred times over, but never tiring of it, because if Doyoung inherited one thing from his father, it’s his aggressively competitive edge. It, at least, keeps things interesting.

The TV is on its third Christmas movie of the evening when Doyoung feels the phone in his pocket start vibrating, and he fishes it out of his pocket with a frown. He gasps, quietly, when he looks at his screen.

“Who’s that, sweetheart?” his mother asks.

“Taeyong wants to FaceTime,” he answers quietly. From the corner of his eye, he sees his parents exchange a look. Of course his mother’s already mentioned it to his dad.

“Well, answer it, silly.”

So, he does.

He realizes, belatedly, that it’s morning where Taeyong is, as the bright daylight behind Taeyong gives it away. Taeyong is smiling, broad and beautiful, and Doyoung’s face splits into a grin at the mere sight of it. 

“Merry Christmas, Doie!” Taeyong cheers through the phone.

“Merry Christmas, Yongie,” he says softly back, hyperaware that his parents are unabashedly eavesdropping. “What made you call?”

At that, a pair of tiny arms sling around Taeyong’s neck from behind, and a child’s face appears over his shoulder, no older than five, grinning enormously as he clambers up Taeyong’s back. He’s adorable, and giggling with the joy of a literal kid on Christmas, and it makes Doyoung smile even harder.

“Ah, little Yongho here wanted to meet uncle- ah!” he struggles as the kid continues to climb all over him. It makes Doyoung laugh. “Uncle Yongie’s very good friend, Doie.”

“Uncle says-” the kid, Yongho, climbs around until he’s seated in Taeyong’s lap, talking directly into the camera with all seriousness. “Uncle says you make an even better kimchi spaghetti than he does.”

Doyoung nods, proudly, “Your uncle’s right,” he says. “I’m the best at that.”

“Maybe someday Doie will have to make some for you, huh?” Taeyong says, nuzzling his face into Yongho’s hair and making the kid giggle. 

“Yeah!” he cheers, giggling brightly. Doyoung notices, then, the similarities between Taeyong and his nephew, the wide, beautiful eyes and the smile that scrunches his face right up. Doyoung wonders if Taeyong’s sister is just as beautiful as he is.

Someone in the background calls out for Yongho, and he shouts a polite,  _ “It was nice to meet you,” _ as he scrambles out of Taeyong’s lap and out of frame. Taeyong smiles, soft, happy, and then runs a hand through his hair and stands up from where he was seated. Doyoung gets the hint and gets up from his seat, too, sending apologetic looks to his parents, which they just wave off with a smile.

He closes the door to the guest bedroom behind him just as Taeyong asks him, gently, “How’s your Christmas going?”

“Wonderful,” Doyoung says, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t know why he’s suddenly very self-conscious about still being in his pajamas. “My mom is so happy to have me home. Dad, too.”

Doyoung doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the soft smile that Taeyong gives him when he understands something that Doyoung hasn’t said aloud. “I’m sure.”

“What about you?” he asks. “Your nephew’s awfully fuckin’ cute.”

“Isn’t he?” Taeyong says with the most joyful giggle Doyoung’s ever seen come out of him. “I’m having a wonderful time. I love times like this, with the family.”

“I know.”

Taeyong brings a hand up to his lips, chews on his thumbnail. The room he’s in has soft yellow walls and it makes him look absolutely gorgeous in contrast, with his dark eyes and silvery hair. “How’s your dad?”

“Happy,” Doyoung says, honestly. “But... pretty feeble. It’s tough, I-” he shifts around in his seat, searching for words. Taeyong just watches him, expectant and patient. “You know, he was once the strongest man I could have ever imagined. And even though he’s come to terms with it, it’s hard, to see him so weak.”

Taeyong’s gaze is equal parts warm and sympathetic. “It must be helping him a lot, to have his family together like this.”

Doyoung nods. “I think so. Still-” he sighs “-it makes me feel... useless. Like there’s nothing I could do to fix this.”

“There isn’t, besides being there,” Taeyong says. He frowns, then, in the way that Doyoung knows he does when he’s carefully choosing the right things to say. “I learned, not long ago, that sometimes... sometimes you just have to let things happen to you.”

Doyoung frowns, the words tugging at something deep in his gut. “Yeah.”

“You can’t control everything in your life,” Taeyong says, seriously and assuredly. As if it’s a reminder for both Doyoung and himself. “You just have to... let things happen.”

Doyoung almost says something stupid, like  _ I miss you _ , or  _ you are so beautiful can you just stay on my phone screen forever so I can stare at you. _ But, Taeyong turns his head to someone talking to him from out of frame. It sounds like it must be his brother-in-law, but Doyoung can’t make out what he’s saying.

“Okay,” Taeyong says, then he turns back to the camera. “I gotta go, Doie.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Doyoung says, because Taeyong has a whole day of festivities ahead of him, with the family he cherishes so strongly. “Thanks for calling.”

“Of course,” he says with a smile. “Merry Christmas.”

“Bye, Yongie.”

Then Taeyong hangs up. 

Doyoung stays sitting there, at the edge of his bed for a long while, thinking. He thinks about what Taeyong said, about just  _ letting things happen _ to him, about giving up total control over the things that can’t be changed, like his father who understands when to give up a fruitless fight and just let his life happen to him, and be happy either way. And it hits him, really, how much Taeyong has been slowly, unconsciously, teaching him that. With his caring and his nurturing and his reminders that Doyoung’s health and happiness comes before everything else that plagues him. Because controlling every little thing about his life is what kept him away from sleep and close to an early grave.

And now, he thinks, he’s never been happier.

He wanders out to the living room, in a little bit of a daze. His mind is swimming with a million things. With Taeyong’s voice and his face and his words. His mom gives him a funny look when he ambles back into the living room and then just stands there, in the middle of the space, unmoving.

He thinks he’s going to let this one thing happen to him.

“Mom, I think I’ve gone and fallen in love.”

His mother is ecstatic, of course. Even his father smiles gladly at his announcement. But, Doyoung doesn’t pay any attention to either of them, too caught up thinking about how the things he feels for Taeyong go so far beyond just a crush, or mere infatuation. It’s far grander than basic attraction.

No, Doyoung is horrifically, enormously, catastrophically in love with Taeyong.

Taeyong, the kindest person he has ever known, who has never asked for anything except that the people he cares for are fine. Taeyong, who gives and gives and then still feels as though he hasn’t done enough - who makes sure he’s eaten and double checks that he’s laughing along with everyone else in the room and that his dreams have been pleasant and that he’s bundled up to keep warm.

Taeyong, who showed up on his doorstep with a plateful of freshly baked cookies, just because Doyoung was looking and feeling a little down in the dumps.

Whatever Doyoung did to deserve an angel like Taeyong in his life, he’s sure he’ll never know. 

What he does know, now, is that he can’t keep running away from his feelings anymore. Doyoung’s a coward, but he’s a coward in  _ love. _ All he prays is that Taeyong doesn’t run off screaming once Doyoung finally owns up to what he’s feeling. What Taeyong needs to hear.

He just needs to make sure he does it  _ right _ this time. 

\-----

Taeyong is stuck in meetings on the day that Doyoung lands at JFK and he’s eternally apologetic for it. Doyoung has to assure him over and over that it’s fine, that he doesn’t need to come greet him straight away. Still, Taeyong sends a million pouty emojis, and Doyoung doesn’t think he’s ever been so in love.

It works out, though, because Doyoung is officially determined to give Taeyong the grandest confession that has ever been confessed. Taeyong deserves fireworks and bouquets of roses and a choir in his honour. But Doyoung needs to do this as quickly as possible, before he goes and talks himself out of it.

He settles on baking Taeyong a batch of chocolate cupcakes. As many cupcakes as Doyoung can possibly whip up before Taeyong is due to arrive home at 1:30.

He glances at the clock. It’s currently a little past noon. He’s jet lagged and groggy, having just come off his flight and cab ride home. But, Doyoung thinks there’s nothing in this world that will stop him from doing this right now.

He switches batches of cupcakes in the oven, putting the baked ones on the rack to cool and setting the timer for the batch he just put in. He picks up his phone, obsessively checking over and over that Taeyong hasn’t texted him. He hasn’t. He’s in the clear. 

The entire apartment is now fully engulfed in the sweet smell of chocolate. The second batch are out and cooling, and Doyoung is trembling as he tries to fill up the piping bag with chocolate frosting. He never bakes, so he’s bad enough at it as it is, but he’s mostly  _ anxious.  _ Anxious about Taeyong coming over and if the cupcakes will impress him and if there’s an inkling of a chance that Taeyong might return those feelings.

Also, Doyoung definitely made the frosting too runny.

He curses under his breath as he struggles with piping the frosting onto the cupcakes. He put too much milk in it, and it’s not keeping shape and melting off the sides of the cupcakes and making a huge mess. His fingers are covered in it, and he can only lick so much clean because it’s  _ so sweet  _ \- and exactly how Taeyong would like it - and none of this is going correctly and he’s going to fucking die alone.

“Oh my god it smells so good in here!” Doyoung hears, along with the sound of the front door clicking shut.

His heart drops out of his ass. Taeyong’s back early.

He’s frozen in place when Taeyong wanders into the kitchen, dressed in his work clothes and looking so stupidly gorgeous Doyoung thinks he forgets every word in every language he knows. His hands are still sticky with frosting, and surely his expression is pale and panicked, but Taeyong obviously doesn’t mind as he skips over to him and wraps his arms around Doyoung’s neck in a tight hug.

“Welcome home! How was your flight?” Taeyong asks with a vibrant smile. He glances curiously at all the cupcakes while he waits for Doyoung to respond.

“It w-” he clears his throat “-it was fine.”

Taeyong’s face scrunches up curiously. “What’s all this?”

He’s talking about the cupcakes. Doyoung is so nervous. “Oh, they’re- they’re uh… for you.”

Taeyong frowns. “For me?”

“Yeah, I just-” Doyoung doesn’t know what he wants to say. His confession has been swimming around in his brain for days now, and suddenly the space between his ears is so empty he can hear the reverberation off his skull. “I wanted to do something nice? For you?”

“Why do you sound so unsure about that?” Taeyong asks with a giggle. He leans a hip against the counter, still staring at Doyoung with a playful sort of curiosity.

“You- you do so much for me, and I just- I thought... maybe if you-”

Something close to realization lights up Taeyong’s face. His eyes go wide and he stands up straight and his arms drop to his sides and Doyoung thinks his heart might leap up out through his throat. “Oh.”

Doyoung can’t say anything. He just puts the piping bag down on the counter and stares sadly at the frosting on his fingers. He wishes this had gone the way he planned.

But he can’t control everything, right?

“Doyoung,” Taeyong says. His voice is deep and serious, and if Doyoung weren’t so acutely aware of everything about him, he wouldn’t notice the slight tremor in his voice. “Doyoung, if you’re trying to say something…”

“I-” he doesn’t have any words.

Luckily, Taeyong does. “If you wanna kiss me,” he says and it knocks the wind right out of Doyoung’s chest, “then kiss me.”

Doyoung whips his head up to look at Taeyong, to see him frowning in all seriousness and certainty. He takes a step forward, and Taeyong doesn’t stop him. The only sound that could possibly be heard is the thumping of Doyoung’s heart in his chest and the sharp intake of breath Taeyong takes once Doyoung is close enough to catch it.

Doyoung leans down, and Taeyong holds his gaze. Then hands are at Doyoung’s hips, turning them until Taeyong’s lower back is against the counter and Doyoung has him caged against it.

He can feel Taeyong’s breath on his skin, hot, waiting. Doyoung thinks, as he places his palms on the edge of the counter, trapping Taeyong here within inches from him, their mouths still just tempting the other to take that last step, that this is  _ so much better  _ than that time they shared sloppy, passionate drunken kisses. Something about  _ knowing  _ exactly what they’re doing, and just how much they both want this… 

It’s enough to make Doyoung tilt his head down that extra inch, and capture Taeyong’s mouth against his.

Taeyong’s kiss, while insistent and urgent, is still soft against Doyoung’s lips. He tastes like a white mocha, his favourite Starbucks drink, and he feels like a tornado spinning around Doyoung’s world and crashing everything around him. And he couldn’t care less about the catalyst. All he cares about is the pleased little hum that escapes from Taeyong’s chest and buzzes against his lips.

Doyoung sighs, and Taeyong takes the opportunity to deepen it. They’re pressed so closely together, hips against hips and chest against chest, and Taeyong’s fingers curl into Doyoung’s back over his shirt, like if he loosens his grip they might float away from one another. It only makes Doyoung sigh again, happy, content, so fully aware that this is the best thing that he could possibly have.

No money, no success, no  _ anything  _ in this world could compare to having Taeyong so close it’s as if they share a body.

Their kisses work similarly to everything else they do together. They push and they pull, give and they take. Doyoung licks behind Taeyong’s teeth but then pulls back to chaste kisses just to hear Taeyong’s frustrated groan, a sound that makes Doyoung’s gut feel like it’s boiling over, makes him squirm against Taeyong as if he could  _ possibly  _ get closer.

He lifts his hands to cup Taeyong’s waist, his jaw, but they hover in the air when he remembers the frosting. He pulls back with a laugh, out of breath and lips tingling with numbness and too much feeling at once.

“My hands,” he says, and can’t be bothered to be embarrassed about how wrecked his voice sounds.

Taeyong, whose eyes are blown out with lust and his cheeks are gorgeously flushed and his lip have reddened to the colour of cherry candy, just takes Doyoung’s hand in his, and lifts it to his lips. He doesn’t  _ once  _ break eye contact, as he gingerly licks the frosting off of Doyoung’s middle finger, tongue velvety and hot and Doyoung thinks he might literally have an aneurysm.

_ “Christ.” _

Doyoung still has some frosting left over on his fingers, but at this point he couldn’t care less, when he grabs Taeyong by the thighs and lifts him until he’s seated on the counter, his legs bracketing Doyoung’s hips.

“Taeyong,  _ Taeyong,”  _ he whispers, one hand on Taeyong’s thigh and the other reaching up to hold his jaw, pulling him back down into another world-crumbling kiss. It’s more desperate this time, closer to the way it was that drunken night, except this time the only thing they’re drunk off is the sweet, sweet taste of each other. “The things you-” he sighs between kisses. “ _ God,  _ you make me useless.”

Taeyong hums contrarily, frowning into his kisses. He shakes his head as best he can, wraps his legs tighter around Doyoung’s hips and his arms tighter around Taeyong’s neck. “No,” he hums, voice quakingly deep and breathy. Doyoung shudders. “Not useless.”

Taeyong pulls back, enough to admire Doyoung’s face with hungry, suggestive eyes, as he says, “I can think of a lot of uses for you, right now.”

Doyoung can only groan, using a determined grip beneath Taeyong’s thighs to lift him off the counter, and down the hall. It’s a wonder he makes it without breaking anything, what with Taeyong kissing him like his life depends on it the entire way there.

\-----

Rosewater, powdered sugar, and hot sticky skin. It’s perhaps the best combination of scents Doyoung has ever known.

He digs his nose into Taeyong’s hair, where Taeyong is thrown across him, his head on Doyoung’s chest and his fingertips aimlessly grazing up and down Doyoung’s bare side. They’re both in need of a shower, sweaty, slowly catching their breaths, but neither of them seem to want to break this moment between them, just lying tangled up, skin to skin, heartbeats slowly joining into one steady rhythm.

He can’t believe he has Taeyong like this. All of his skin and all of his trust, equal parts tender and intense, loving and unforgiving. He breathes in, wraps his arm around Taeyong even tighter.

He lets himself have this.

“Why were you baking me cupcakes?” Taeyong murmurs, his voice spreading hot air across Doyoung’s sensitive skin. 

Doyoung giggles. He feels Taeyong smile against his skin. “I wanted to do something special, to-”

It hits him, suddenly, that he never got a chance to say what he wanted to say.

A deep breath. “You baked me cookies, when we first met. It was just… an act of kindness, something you thought I needed.” He pauses and Taeyong flattens his hand against the small of his waist, palm practically searing a brand into Doyoung’s skin. “I wanted to do something for you, something you  _ deserve,  _ but this time… an act of love.”

Taeyong gasps, the tiniest intake of breath. Then, he lifts his head, and Doyoung’s heart skips a beat or two - or ten - at the sight of his beautiful face. He doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of it. 

“Say that again.”

Doyoung smiles. “Love.”

Taeyong doesn’t say anything, just frowns and studies Doyoung. His eyes flit between each and every feature on Doyoung’s face, as if the longer he looks the easier he’ll process this. It makes Doyoung laugh, quietly, and reach up to tuck some of Taeyong’s hair behind his ear.

“Taeyong, I’m so in love with you it’s stupid.”

_ “Why?”  _ Taeyong asks. “I mean, I’m in love with you too, idiot, but why  _ me?” _

“What? Why not you?” Doyoung says with a laugh. He doesn’t have time to process that Taeyong said it, too. “You’re so kind and beautiful and captivating, I…” he groans. “Oh my god, are you just gonna lay here and make me say nice things about you?”

Taeyong laughs, shifting his weight until he’s straddling Doyoung’s hips, hovering over him with an elated beam splitting his cheeks. 

“Holy shit, Doyoung,” he says, “I love you. I love you and your stupid cupcake idea.”

“It was not stupid!”

He’s cut off with another kiss from Taeyong. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to kissing him like this. The fact that he can just  _ have this _ whenever he wants. That he can lay here and run greedy hands all along Taeyong’s bare skin and kiss the air right out of his lungs and hear  _ I love you  _ from his cherry red lips. It doesn’t make any sense to him, how his life has come to this.

But, he thinks, it’s best to just let this thing happen. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!!
> 
> You can always find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/bbhsteet), and [CuriousCat <3](http://www.curiouscat.me/bbhsteeth)


End file.
